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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Pursuit, by Frank (Frank Mackenzie)
+Savile, Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Pursuit
+
+
+Author: Frank (Frank Mackenzie) Savile
+
+
+
+Release Date: January 5, 2011  [eBook #34861]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PURSUIT***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Darleen Dove, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 34861-h.htm or 34861-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34861/34861-h/34861-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34861/34861-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PURSUIT
+
+by
+
+FRANK SAVILE
+
+Author of "Beyond the Great South Wall," etc.
+
+With Illustrations by Herman Pfeifer
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Boston
+Little, Brown, and Company
+1910
+
+Copyright, 1909, 1910,
+By Little, Brown, and Company.
+
+All rights reserved
+
+Published, June, 1910
+
+The University Press, Cambridge, U.S.A.
+
+
+
+[Illustration: _"I know now that you are a gentleman," she said simply_]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+        I. THE LADY OF THE PIER
+
+       II. AT THE TENT CLUB
+
+      III. THE SHADOW OF A NAME
+
+       IV. DESPARD EXPLAINS
+
+        V. MR. MILLER
+
+       VI. LANDON'S NEW PROFESSION
+
+      VII. VILLA EULALIA
+
+     VIII. THE FIRST TRICK IS LOST
+
+       IX. AYLMER IS EXPLICIT
+
+        X. BY FAVOR OF THE FOG
+
+       XI. RATTIER LOSES HIS CALM
+
+      XII. THE AMBUSH OF THE BROOM
+
+     XIII. THE TRAP
+
+      XIV. ONE SIDE OF A BARGAIN
+
+       XV. PERINAUD'S NEWS
+
+      XVI. AT MELILLA
+
+     XVII. MUHAMMED SCORES TWICE
+
+    XVIII. THE SANTA MARGARITA'S LAZARET
+
+      XIX. MILLER IS STILL IMPERTURBABLE
+
+       XX. AYLMER CLIMBS--AND FALLS
+
+      XXI. FATE STAYS HER HAND
+
+     XXII. THE PRISON
+
+    XXIII. PADRE SIGISMONDI
+
+     XXIV. LUIGI'S HOSPITALITY
+
+      XXV. FATE'S FINAL WORD
+
+     XXVI. DAWN COMES
+
+    XXVII. SHADOWS GO
+
+   XXVIII. FATE SMILES AT LAST
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+"I know now that you are a gentleman," she said simply
+
+"You saved the boy!" she said, in a quick, panting whisper
+
+"Mademoiselle, I am Sergeant Perinaud"
+
+She gripped the protecting hand between her fingers
+
+
+
+
+THE PURSUIT
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE LADY OF THE PIER
+
+
+It was not the muleteer's shove, slight but significant though it was,
+which produced John Aylmer's shrug of irritation. His resentment was
+directed at himself. He realized that he had been guilty of a gaucherie.
+For thirty seconds he had been standing halted in the main street of
+Tangier, a rock of obstruction to all the rabble traffic which passes
+between the Bab al Marsa and the Bab al Sôk, staring at--what?
+
+At a pretty woman.
+
+He reddened under his tan. The muleteer's shoulder had displaced him for
+purely practical reasons, for, indeed, almost benevolent ones, for the
+mules would have been capable of obtaining with their teeth what their
+guardian had obtained by mere weight of his body. But Aylmer felt that
+by accepted social standards a kick would not have been more than his
+due. Had he not been behaving like some cub of a cockney clerk at an
+Earl's Court Exhibition? His lips moved. He was muttering excuses of
+himself to himself, and knew that they were valid, but that an onlooker
+would have had no clue to them.
+
+For it was not her prettiness which had drawn his attention to the girl.
+It took no second glance to assure him that she was no countrywoman of
+his, but an American. Her features had the clean regularity, her
+complexion the pale, unfurrowed smoothness which is kept intact on the
+western side of the Atlantic and there alone. The Moroccan sunlight was
+proving in a dozen places the mistake the shadows made when they dulled
+the gold of her hair to brown. Her eyes matched the waters of the
+unrippled bay.
+
+Though he recognized these things, they had not, in the first place,
+attracted Aylmer's attention. American girls--pretty American girls--are
+no rarity in Tangier since Mr. Cook threw over Moghreb-al-Aksa the ægis
+of his protection. Under ordinary circumstances he would have looked,
+approved, and, without altering his stride, passed on. But here was
+something which appealed to the inherited instincts of a gentleman. What
+was it?
+
+Apprehension.
+
+He felt no reasonable doubt on the subject. Among this girl's natural
+attributes, he told himself, were placidity, content, self-reliance. The
+first two were wanting. The third was strained. There was almost a sense
+of furtiveness in the glances which she turned to throw not only about
+but, occasionally, behind her. Frankly, she was afraid.
+
+His interest fed upon observation. He glanced at her more narrowly, he
+observed her surroundings. He drew aside out of the mid-street traffic,
+and under pretence of lighting a cigarette, halted again in the shadow
+of an awning.
+
+She was not alone. She held by the hand a small, alert-looking child--a
+boy, who watched the passers-by with the happy, unconcentrated interest
+of childhood. His eyes reviewed his surroundings without any of the
+surprise of unaccustomedness; obviously the scene was not strange to
+him. He smiled at Jew and Moslem, Christian and Infidel, with a pleasant
+patronage which one or two itinerant pedlars and shop touts returned
+with obsequious affability. One man, indeed,--a bronzed, hawk-nosed
+specimen of the desert Arab clad in a ragged _djelab_ of brown,--laughed
+gaily, plucked a carnation from behind his ear, and flung it to his
+small admirer as he passed.
+
+The child gave a little cackle of delight as he picked it up. The girl
+looked down as he did so and frowned.
+
+"Who was that, Selim?" she asked quickly, and Aylmer saw that the
+question was addressed to a stout, muscular Moor who was in attendance.
+
+The man lifted his shoulders in deprecation and darted a suspicious
+glance towards the crowd which had already closed upon the _djelab_ of
+brown.
+
+"Some desert dog," he answered sullenly. "But indeed Sidi Jan encourages
+all the rabble of the Sôk to take these liberties. He smiles, and the
+jackals think they have license to smile back."
+
+The object of these reproaches thrust the carnation carelessly behind
+his own small ear.
+
+"I have seen him before--once, twice, many times," he explained. "He
+laughs; he is not gray and dull like Selim. I would like to have him for
+my kavass."
+
+"I drown in perspiration three shirts a day while I wait on thee,"
+affirmed the fat man reproachfully. "Is this thy gratitude?"
+
+"I do not wish to be waited on; I wish to be played with," said the
+child. "I should like to go to the sands where the Kaid's horses are
+galloped, and play with the brown man. We would paddle and I would throw
+the water over him. He has promised me this."
+
+The girl started and gave a convulsive little grip of the fingers which
+lay in hers.
+
+"He has spoken to you?" she cried. "When--where?"
+
+The boy nodded his yellow mop of hair importantly.
+
+"Yesterday as I rode through the Sôk," he answered. "He walked beside my
+donkey and told me that I was a horseman already made, and should be on
+the back of a black barb like Sid' Abdullah's. Then I, too, could race
+upon the sands."
+
+The girl looked stonily at the Moor.
+
+"How was this, Selim?" she asked coldly. "Where was your watchfulness?"
+
+The man spread out his hands.
+
+"Am I a prophet--am I Allah Himself?" he cried aggrievedly. "There was a
+crowd--a press--in the Sôk yesterday, wherein one had scarcely room to
+take breath. And you have seen for yourself. Sidi Jan snatches at
+familiarities from such as that one; the nearer the gutter he finds his
+friends the better is he pleased."
+
+She looked down at the delinquent, who, without being disconcerted,
+grinned back.
+
+"John," she admonished him gravely, "you are _never_ to speak or listen
+to strangers in the Sôk, or anywhere else."
+
+John wriggled and pouted.
+
+"I love the brown man," he answered defiantly.
+
+"He's probably a wicked, wicked man," said his monitress. "Instead of
+playing with you on the sands, he'd very likely bite you--like a camel."
+
+The eyes beneath the yellow mop grew round with interest.
+
+"Would he?" he asked breathlessly. "That would--would be fun!"
+
+Do what he could to restrain it, a smile broadened across Aylmer's face,
+and in that moment the girl, looking up, met his eye. He reddened
+slightly again, hastily struck and put a match to his still unlit
+cigarette. But in that instant he had read surprise first in her glance,
+then the knowledge that she had been overheard, and lastly--yes, there
+was no doubt about it--fear. Not the apprehension of the unknown and
+unexpected this time, but the thrill of distrust experienced by one
+seeing peril looming unveiled before her. She was afraid of him, John
+Aylmer! Her apprehension was no longer vague; he had become the target
+of it.
+
+She dropped her eyes, made a sign to the Moor, and swung quickly towards
+the nearest shop. And Aylmer, in the midst of the mental disturbance
+caused by the incident, barely repressed a smile. For the booth, it was
+little more, was stored with the coarse calicoes and prints which appeal
+to the dwellers in the desert; there was certainly nothing there to
+please the tourist or hunter of curios. No--hunted, she had turned
+instinctively to the nearest shelter. Undoubtedly she had fled
+from--him.
+
+He wheeled quickly and strode off down the hill towards the
+Bab-al-Marsa. Explanation eluded him; he felt baffled. At the same time
+he was conscious of a sense of relief. Instinct had brought him to a
+halt, the instinct which bids the normal man stop to offer help to the
+helpless even before that help is claimed. He had discovered, or thought
+he had discovered, fear in the girl's attitude, and almost inadvertently
+had stayed to rout it. And now? What fear could have a stable foundation
+which made him, an absolute stranger, its sudden focus?
+
+He shook his head regretfully. To what could not neurasthenia or some
+such fashionable derangement of the nerves bring a woman in these days
+of fashionable stress? And yet? Her bearing had not been that of a
+neurotic. And she was young, three and twenty at the outside. Her face
+was unlined, her eyes clear, yet, after a moment's scrutiny, she had
+fled from him. He could not dismiss the problem; he carried it with him
+out of the Marsa gate, along the wooden pier. Behind the toll bar he sat
+upon a timber balk and studied it. It gave him a sense of physical pain
+to remember the expression in those eyes, of which the sea was one vast
+reminder.
+
+A minute or two later, with a petulant shrug, he dismissed the
+matter--or tried to--from his thoughts. After all, mystery though it
+was, the affair had no real significance for him. He had, inadvertently,
+frightened a lady. But no real responsibility was his. He had looked at
+her keenly; too keenly, perhaps, but with no shadow of offence. She had
+chosen to interpret his scrutiny as menacing. They would probably not
+meet again--why, indeed, should they? And yet, this decision was
+mentally addressed to a possibly listening Fate to disarm it. Without
+defining the desire even to himself, he knew that it was there. He
+wanted to meet her again; he wanted it badly.
+
+It was with this desire still at the back of his mind that he turned his
+eyes seaward on the mission which had brought him to the harbor.
+
+The _Diomède_? Was she in? Would her commander, Paul Rattier, be in time
+to join him in riding out to the Tent Club that evening, or would they
+have to postpone their expedition to the early hours of daylight? He
+strained his glance northward where the gray bulk of Gibraltar was
+hidden by floating clouds of Mediterranean mist.
+
+Two French men-of-war lay far out in the bay. A trail of black smoke
+showed where another steamed eastward with invalids from Casablanca to
+Oran. But neither of the three was the _Diomède_; he knew her squat
+turrets among a thousand. He gave a pessimistic little sigh. Instead of
+the jovial evening out at Awara under canvas, they would have the hot
+discomforts of an hotel and a fifteen-mile ride in the dawning to sap
+their energies before the day's sport began. He looked up with
+discontent at the westering sun. It appeared to be sinking towards the
+horizon with almost indecent haste.
+
+He pulled out another cigarette and lounged lazily along the plank,
+watching the traffic of the pier and shore in _blasé_ indifference. Just
+below him half a dozen _barcasses_ were being filled with stout, squat
+little cattle, destined for food for the weary troops of Ber Rechid and
+El Setat. The bullocks were being goaded up an incline of planks and
+tumbled roughly into the unwieldy lighters, and as these were filled a
+little tug fussed up and towed them by threes to the waiting steamer of
+the Compagnie Mixte. And here the sufferings of the bullocks deepened
+from mere discomfort to the fine edge of tragedy. In twos they were
+lassoed round the horns. The steam winch aboard the steamer crashed,
+and with straining necks and starting eyes the unfortunate beasts were
+rushed up through the air and swung with terrifying speed down into the
+hold. They were near enough for him to see through his binoculars the
+strained mute agony of fear in the eyes of each brute as it swung. And
+there was a dog on board. Each time as the living load passed within
+reach of its leap, it sprang into the air and made its teeth meet in the
+helpless flesh. And the stevedores applauded and goaded him to further
+efforts. Finally the horns of one struggling animal broke. There was a
+hoarse laugh as it fell, to break other bones, no doubt, in the depths
+of the hold, or to mutilate some former comrade below. Aylmer turned
+away with a shrug of sickened disgust. What a land of cruelty it was, of
+grinding cruelty which spared neither man, woman, nor child, and
+certainly no beast! He turned his glance shorewards to avoid seeing the
+tragedy of the bullocks repeat itself.
+
+As he did so he gave a start of suddenly aroused interest. Rapidly
+nearing him was a man whom he recognized. He was the hawk-nosed, swarthy
+son of the desert who had flung the carnation at the American child's
+feet. He was walking rapidly, smiling, talking in a quick undertone to
+another child, one who trotted at his side happily enough--born of his
+own people, this--a little Moor, clad in a tiny bournous and a hooded
+_djelab_ of brown.
+
+They were making for the steps which led down from Aylmer's side to the
+huddle of rowboats which awaited chance fares below.
+
+Suddenly Aylmer's attention, which had been aroused merely by the fact
+that the sight of the man led his thoughts back to the interest of an
+hour before, became concentrated. The Moorish child babbled in English!
+
+"A black stallion!" he said impressively. "One that will arch his neck
+like the dome of the mosque, and carry me past all the other horses on
+the sands?"
+
+"It shall be as you desire, little lord," answered the man, easily. "We
+have but to take a boat from among the many below and row across to the
+beach. There the horse of thy desires awaits thee. Look carefully.
+Perchance thou canst see it even now. Thou hast the eyes of a hawk; I
+know it."
+
+And then Aylmer understood. He saw that below the child's ears and along
+the line of his hair a dye had been applied. The golden curls had been
+stuffed back into the hood of the _djelab_, shoes and stockings flung
+away, and little dye-stained feet thrust into yellow slippers. The folds
+of the bournous covered all else. It was the child of the street
+encounter, the child himself!
+
+Aylmer's instincts, rather than any formed purpose, brought him to his
+feet and in front of the man, as the latter was about to descend the
+stairs.
+
+"Where did you gain authority over this?" he asked curtly in Arabic,
+pointing down at the boy.
+
+The man eyed him with stony imperturbability.
+
+"Is Tangier come to such a pass that we of the Faith have to justify to
+Nazarenes our authority over our own children?" he asked. "Keep to thine
+own affairs, _Kaffirbillah_."
+
+Aylmer did not unbar the road of the steps. He leaned down and spoke
+directly to the child, who was regarding him with half timid curiosity.
+
+"Is this man your kavass?" he said gently. "Is he in your parents'
+service?"
+
+The red flush of guilt rose under the brown dye. A bright yellow curl
+fell from out of the _djelab_ hood as the small head was shaken.
+
+"He promised me a horse," said lips which had begun to have a distinct
+semblance of trembling. "They have only given me a donkey so far--only a
+gray donkey."
+
+"Then they do not know that you are with this man; they would not allow
+it?" pursued Aylmer.
+
+The Moor broke in angrily.
+
+"Do not be questioned, little lord!" he cried. "This is a son of
+infinite shame and wickedness, who has no rights over thee!"
+
+"As many, at least, I suspect, as thou," returned Aylmer. "This is a
+matter for investigation. We will come to the post of the Spanish police
+at the pier head."
+
+"We!" The man's eyes flashed wickedly. "I come not, nor this, my
+charge."
+
+Aylmer shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"That is a matter within your discretion, for yourself." He laid his
+hand upon the child's shoulder. "But this one goes with me."
+
+A grin of rage flashed across the Moor's features. With one hand he made
+a quick clawing snatch at the child's arm; the other he plunged into his
+bosom. As it reappeared a knife blade flashed in the sun.
+
+Mere instinct made Aylmer throw up his arm in defence. Experience and
+presence of mind bade him fling himself to one side without removing his
+knee from the path of his assailant. Matters followed the usual course
+when this old trick of the desert is put in action. The fellow tripped,
+plunged forward over the outsprawled limb, and fell crashingly upon his
+elbows.
+
+Aylmer's first thought was for the knife which gleamed upon the
+planking half a dozen yards away. He scrambled to his feet and, without
+troubling to bend, gravely kicked it into the sea. At the same time he
+was aware of a commotion behind him. The small child's voice was raised
+in anger.
+
+"I hate you--I hate you!" he declaimed. "Now Selim will get me!"
+
+There was a reason for his wrath. Panting, blowing, and, to be frank,
+looking uncommonly like an over-driven buffalo, the Moor attendant was
+speeding down the pier with outstretched arms furiously gesticulating.
+The flap of his slippers slammed upon the boards, boat boys jeered,
+hotel touts made comments which no Bowdler could render into reputable
+English. And a few yards behind him--Aylmer's heart gave a queer little
+leap at the sight--ran totteringly the white-clad lady, his mistress.
+
+The child made an angry gesture of repulse.
+
+"I won't go back!" he shrilled. "I won't, I won't!"
+
+He looked round towards his new-found friend, who was scrambling to his
+feet. He ran towards him.
+
+Aylmer stretched out a hand and whirled the child up, facing towards the
+Moor. The latter hesitated, looked towards the advancing figures, and
+hesitated no longer. Behind the lady ran a couple of the newly raised
+Spanish police.
+
+He swerved swiftly aside, dashed down the steps, and passed rapidly from
+boat to boat across the gunwales till he had gained one on the outskirt
+of the press. He shouted fiercely to the boy who held the oars, and the
+latter bent to his work. The tide was with them and they passed rapidly
+across the harbor mouth towards the yellow sands outside the town.
+
+The child struggled and shouted in Aylmer's arms, stretching out his
+hands as he saw his friend disappear in the direction of the, to him,
+still credible black stallion and other promised delights. He struck out
+passionately at Selim as the latter's hand closed upon him like the grip
+of an embodied Fate.
+
+"I want my horse, my horse!" he wailed. "I don't want a donkey; I hate
+it, hate it!"
+
+Aylmer surrendered him, nothing loath, into his attendant's arms and
+then stood expectant, hat in hand. As she saw Selim again in full
+command of his responsibilities, the girl dropped from a run into a
+rapid walk. She panted, she held her hand upon her breast as she joined
+them. The two khaki-clad police inspected Aylmer with something of
+mistrust in their gaze.
+
+For a moment her breath failed her; she could only look at the captive
+with half resentful, half satisfied eyes. Then she shook her finger at
+him.
+
+"You wicked child!" she cried. "You wicked, wicked child!"
+
+The small sinner laughed defiantly.
+
+"The brown man beckoned me from the door of the mosque," he boasted. "I
+did see him and ran behind the mule that passed, and in at the door, and
+the brown man caught me up and smeared brown stuff on my face, and ran
+with me through the other door and out into the other street and covered
+me with this." He indicated the _djelab_ with pride. "And Selim did not
+find me. Ho! Ho! I saw fat Selim jumping like a jerboa as we passed the
+harbor gate!"
+
+Aylmer inspected him gravely.
+
+"I have a bamboo cane at home which would meet your case, young man," he
+said quietly. "Would the loan of it be a boon?" he asked suddenly,
+looking at the girl.
+
+There was no answering smile in her eyes. She shook her head.
+
+"Thank you for--your intervention," she said quickly. "No, we never beat
+children in America; we--we respect them."
+
+Aylmer nodded.
+
+"In England our plan is to make them respect themselves," he answered.
+"I dare say both methods have their advantages." He made a gesture
+towards the town. "Can I have the pleasure of escorting you back?" he
+asked. "Have you any further--attempts to fear?"
+
+There was an obvious desire for information in the question and in his
+eyes.
+
+She made no attempt to satisfy it. She shook her head again.
+
+"Thank you, no," she answered. "John will have no further opportunities
+to escape us; we have had our lesson. I can only thank you again and say
+good morning."
+
+He raised his cap in answer to her bow. He watched her turn and walk
+after Selim, who held his prisoner enfolded in an embrace that gave no
+loophole for a second escape, little, indeed, for any movement at all.
+Expression gave place to expression on Aylmer's face. Irritation
+succeeded surprise and that was quickly followed by amusement.
+
+Finally he seemed to dismiss the subject with a shrug which was all
+bewilderment.
+
+"She thanked me," he reminded himself. "She thanked me, but her manner
+suggested that she would rather have flung me a sovereign to get
+decently rid of me." He nodded his head with decision. "She's afraid of
+me, that's the truth. Why--in the name of all that's sensible--Why?"
+
+Echo supplied no answer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+AT THE TENT CLUB
+
+
+Aylmer tightened the reins, touched the rowels against the mare's flank,
+and lifted her out of her easy amble into something like a canter. He
+called to his companion and pointed up the slope at a gleam of white set
+in the dun green of the cork woods.
+
+"The camp!" he said, and gave a little sigh of relief. Through the
+fifteen miles which separate Tangier from Awara the two had halted no
+longer than sufficed to tighten a girth or light a cigarette. The horses
+were white with lather, the men stained with dust.
+
+Commandant Rattier looked, nodded, and smiled. For a sailor, people were
+apt to consider him taciturn--at first; but they soon discovered that
+his was a taciturnity which spoke. His brown eyes could gleam with many
+lights which were whimsically expressive. A little sidelong jerk of his
+neatly trimmed beard told more than many elaborated sentences.
+Reputations had tottered and scandals had been abashed before a single
+gesture of his neatly gloved hands. For the moment his nod suggested
+content, anticipation, and unruffled good humor.
+
+A minute later surprise overcame his reticence. Half a dozen dull,
+half-muffled explosions throbbed in the distant jungle of broom and wild
+olive. The commandant's eyebrows rose in arcs of amazement.
+
+"Do they then shoot the boar as well as impale it?" he asked.
+
+Aylmer smiled.
+
+"The beaters," he explained. "They are driving towards the plain behind
+the marsh. They are firing blank charges."
+
+The Frenchman gave a little laugh.
+
+"In all these matters you must remember that I am of an ignorance the
+most profound. And my impudence, also, must appear to you colossal. I am
+to allow myself to charge with a spear--I, who, till to-day, have never
+seen a wild pig save, perhaps, as bacon!"
+
+Aylmer dropped the reins upon the mare's neck, lifted his hand, and
+wiped his forehead.
+
+"All things must have a beginning, my friend," he said. "You have the
+sailor's eye and, no doubt, the sailor's steady hand. And, above all,
+you ride--as sailors do not always ride. I have every reason to believe
+that I shall be proud of you before the day is out."
+
+Rattier lifted his shoulders with a little shrug. He did not speak, but
+he left the impression that he deprecated this point of view, found the
+arguments futile, and disposed of the question finally. The attention of
+the riders was suddenly drawn elsewhere.
+
+A couple of men emerged into view from behind a clump of argans. They
+held two horses by the bridles. One of them signalled with outstretched
+hand.
+
+As Aylmer reined in the mare almost upon her haunches the man dropped
+his hand, relinquished the horse he held into the care of his companion,
+and approached. He made a dignified gesture of welcome and pointed to a
+basket on the ground.
+
+"Sid' Anstruther sends breakfast, Sidi. They drive the bush beyond the
+hill and the marsh. If you will refresh yourselves here you will avoid
+climbing the hill to the camp. You can then take these horses and join
+the spears who wait at the tongue of the jungle in the plain."
+
+Aylmer slid to the ground.
+
+"It is well thought of, Absalaam," he said, and turned to explain
+matters to his companion. The Moor beckoned forward his underling, who
+quickly tethered the fresh horses to a broom stump and then led away the
+other two in the direction of the tents which gleamed white upon the
+slope a mile or so above them. Absalaam, meanwhile, was deftly setting
+out the meal in the shadow of the argan branches.
+
+The two began to eat and drink with appreciation but quickly. They did
+not exchange much conversation; their attention, indeed, seemed
+concentrated on matters outside sight but within hearing. For the
+muffled explosions continued and to them was added the sound of
+chorussed and intermittent yells. But these last had not risen to any
+great pitch of excitement; no pig, or, at any rate, no boar, had as yet
+been sighted or had broken cover.
+
+Absalaam flitted to and fro handing dishes, changing plates, expressing
+by the vigilance of his attitude and actions the fact that he, too,
+appreciated the need for haste. His dark eyes beamed a sort of intensity
+of vigor; the pose of his head seemed to indicate that his ears were
+critically alert to the purport of those distant shouts. But he offered
+no comment till Aylmer pushed aside his plate and rose to his feet.
+
+"Your station, oh Sidis, will be at the far side of the point of jungle,
+between the marsh and the forest."
+
+Aylmer nodded, explained to Rattier, and swung himself into the saddle.
+
+"How many spears?" he asked laconically. The Moor held up the open
+fingers of one hand.
+
+"Four," he answered, "and a lady, who rides but does not carry a spear.
+It will be difficult with so few, but the Sidis will find the horses of
+good mettle and capable. Have I now your leave to go, oh Sidis? It is
+desirable that I join the beaters."
+
+Aylmer made a curt motion of consent and looked round, with a tinge of
+impatience, for his companion. Rattier was daintily flicking a crumb or
+two from his khaki tunic and flapping his handkerchief at the dust on
+his overalls. He mounted, at last, with a self-satisfied little shrug.
+He was prepared to meet the world's criticism, or this, at any rate, was
+the implication his shoulders conveyed.
+
+With an air that was deferential without being obsequious the Moor
+handed each rider a long "under-arm" spear. The next instant they had
+disappeared down the ragged track through the mimosa at a gallop.
+
+As they emerged into the open plain beyond the stretch of forest land,
+the yells in the jungle combined into a stentorian chorus. The hidden
+men shrieked, hollaed, rattled their staves, and in one or two instances
+performed excited fantasias with empty sardine tins. Up on the slope a
+furlong or two above Aylmer and his companion, a woman came suddenly
+into view, riding a dappled gray, and waving a handkerchief.
+
+They turned towards her as another rider, as yet unseen, cantered round
+a thicket of broom in the same direction.
+
+The handkerchief was waved excitedly and the canter became a gallop.
+
+The mimosa crashed; the sun-dried lop of wild olive was splintered.
+Something dark, unwieldy, menacing, burst out of the undergrowth with a
+speed which seemed preposterously out of proportion to its bulk. It fled
+across the interval of sand which lay between the strip of forest behind
+it and the one from which Aylmer and Rattier had just emerged. Emotion
+perforated the latter's imperturbability. Speech escaped him.
+
+"But this is a monster!" he exclaimed. "The near relation of a
+hippopotamus!"
+
+The boar may have heard and certainly seemed to resent the criticism. He
+jinked, wheeled from the direction which would have taken him slantingly
+towards the other rider, and charged the commandant. Nothing daunted,
+the latter lowered his spear and galloped steadily forward.
+
+He did not attempt to lessen his speed to receive the shock. Had his
+skill, indeed, been equal to his spirit, the result would never have
+been in doubt. But he held his spear at a "dropping" angle, which
+discounted the force of speed behind it. The point, instead of meeting
+the boar's chest in a line almost parallel with the ground, grazed his
+jaw, brushed past his shoulder, and cut a shallow groove in his quarter.
+It turned the charge, but not far enough. The wicked eight-inch tusks
+flashed out in passing and gashed the horse's pastern. The gallop slowed
+into a canter, blundered into a trot, and became a halting limp.
+
+The boar jinked again and Aylmer spurred in pursuit, hearing the hoofs
+of his rival's horse thundering jealously behind. He increased his
+speed, diminished the distance yard by yard, lowered his spear, thrust,
+and was nearly spilled from the saddle. With incredible quickness the
+huge body had wheeled again as if on a pivot.
+
+The pursuers made a chorus of their vexation. Their impetuosity carried
+them a full forty yards past the line of the boar's retreat. They reined
+in jerkily, and turned to see their quarry in full retreat up the hill.
+
+By good horsemanship Aylmer maintained and increased his lead, but
+without much hope of overhauling the chase before the thicket gave it
+shelter. The mimosa covert was a bare two furlongs distant. The only
+chance lay in the boar being headed, and all the spears were,
+apparently, behind it. There remained nothing to do but to ride and ride
+hard.
+
+His horse responded bravely to the touch of the spur but the sand was
+loose and deep. He decreased very slightly the distance between pursuer
+and pursued, faltered once or twice, and began to show distress in his
+breathing. Aylmer told himself that, for the moment, the game was up.
+
+And then, with a whirl of flying drapery and gesticulating arms, a new
+rider shot into view on the brow of the slope. Absalaam, calling down
+innumerable maledictions upon the ancestry of all jungle pigs, galloped
+a tent pony between the boar and his refuge.
+
+His tactics were successful, but not in the direction which he had
+desired. The brute wheeled, not down-hill towards the other riders, but
+slanting back and still upwards in the direction of Awara and the camp.
+
+As Aylmer swerved to follow, a cry startled him. He was suddenly aware
+that the lady in white was riding slightly behind, but almost abreast of
+him. She was swathed in a sand veil, but her eyes were uncovered and the
+expression in them was arresting. She was staring up the hill. Her
+glance told of anxiety, or even horror.
+
+He followed the direction of her gaze.
+
+Two figures appeared, both exactly in the line of the hunt. One, also
+white clad, and running with uncertain feet, was evidently a child--a
+boy of six or seven years. He had distanced his pursuer, a fat and
+middle-aged Moor, who was menacing him with gesticulations of wrath and
+at the same time emitting supplicating cries. The youngster answered him
+with triumphant little jeers, and continued his escape. At the same
+moment both of them saw the approaching danger.
+
+The child halted, hesitated, and seemed to debate upon his action. Not
+so the Moor. With a howl of dismay he fled towards the undergrowth, his
+yellow slippers twinkling against the dun background of the sand. And he
+continued to yell with whole-hearted despair; he woke the echoes with
+his shrieks.
+
+About fifty yards separated Aylmer from the boar. The child was a full
+furlong distant. A sudden chill pulsed into, and gripped, the man's
+heart as he realized the situation.
+
+Again the woman called aloud and smote her horse furiously across the
+withers as she strove to urge it on. Taken by surprise the gray changed
+step, stumbled, and nearly came down. With lowered spear Aylmer shot
+ahead.
+
+The horse responded nobly to the need. The interval decreased. The boar
+was thirty yards ahead--twenty--now no more than ten. The wicked little
+eyes flung glances sideways; the bristling withers showed that almost
+imperceptible rippling motion which presages a "jink."
+
+Aylmer leaned down across his saddle, holding out the spear before him
+almost by the butt. He was yet too far to get in a thrust. He could only
+hope to divert the brute's attention by a short, pricking stab. For the
+child, now running with short, terrified strides, was immediately in
+front of the gleaming tusks.
+
+Aylmer lunged out.
+
+The point reached and entered the boar's flank. It squealed savagely,
+turned, blundered, and fell beneath the horse's hoofs. Aylmer felt the
+shock, the agonizing effort at recovery, the final thud of the fall. The
+horse tripped and rolled over; the spear was torn from the rider's grip.
+Aylmer ploughed a groove in the sand which landed him far out beyond the
+huddle of flying limbs in which the white tusks were already working
+viciously.
+
+He scrambled first to his knees and then to his feet. He looked around.
+The child was close to him, running now towards him. His hands were
+outstretched; he gave little panting cries.
+
+And then Aylmer experienced that curious cold sense of relaxation which
+comes to some men when the situation calls for instant effort. He saw
+the child; he saw also the boar, slashing relentlessly a way out from
+the tangle of his horse's legs; he saw the horsewoman whose reins were
+tightening not twenty yards away. But here was no cause for hesitation
+or bewilderment. His mind, to himself, worked with a certain sense of
+leisure. He stooped, caught up the child, placed him in the woman's
+arms, and gave her horse a thrust of dismissal with his fist. As the
+flying hoofs scattered the sand upon his tunic, he turned to confront
+his own plight without fear, with, indeed, nothing less than relief. The
+absorbing objective of the last two minutes being achieved, his mind
+had not had time to review and interpret his own danger.
+
+The boar shook itself free of entanglement, snapped around at the wound
+in its flank, swayed a little and suddenly, malignantly, focussed its
+gaze upon Aylmer. It gave a grunt of satisfaction, as it seemed. As if
+the tension of a hidden spring was released, it bounded forward.
+
+Aylmer looked at it as one looks at, and appraises, a picture. The sense
+of his own peril was in his mind, but latently. He understood the
+consequences if the boar reached him, but, owing to some perverse
+enravelment of the brain, details absorbed him to the veiling of all
+else. He noted with what excellent effect the crimson smear upon the
+dark flank shone out against the dull background of the sand. He
+recognized the abnormal curl of the tusks, and debated to what angle the
+jaw must be slanted to deliver the ripping undercut which experience
+told him he would receive within a couple of seconds. He saw with a pang
+of regret that the shaft of his spear was broken; the splintered end
+protruded from below the withers of the still struggling horse. Thus the
+picture--which engrossed him.
+
+And then it was gone, blotted out. The thunder of hoofs, a rising cloud
+of sand, a dark, struggling mass, which was the boar upon its back. The
+rider whom he had distanced had passed and the spear had got home. Red
+was the central spot of this picture, also, but no longer on the dark
+flank. It welled from the dying animal's chest in torrents.
+
+As he watched its struggles, the sense of hazard escaped came home to
+him. Fear found room in his brain. He ran towards the broken spear,
+grasped it, turned to confront a peril which no longer menaced.
+
+A shudder shook the swaying body, the great thews relaxed. The boar
+panted violently--once--twice. Then with a single sigh, very gently,
+very languidly, it sank upon the earth. And so lay still.
+
+As he stood staring down at it, a reaction against his tinge of panic
+moved Aylmer to laughter. He began to giggle in little bubbling gasps of
+mirth which were near relations of hysteria. Matters had gone so quickly
+that his sense of proportion had been displaced. First perfect
+equanimity, then sudden and unfounded apprehension, now recoil. One
+short minute had made ample room for all these among his emotions. He
+found laughter the only balm to his self-respect, for he was shivering
+with a Briton's uneasy sense of having been guilty of melodrama.
+
+His introspection was so intent that he failed to observe the return of
+the lady in white till her horse spurned the sand upon his riding boots.
+Then he wheeled alertly and looked up in her face. Her veil had dropped.
+
+She was clasping the child to her with the hand in which she gripped the
+reins. The other she held out to him.
+
+"You saved the boy!" she said, in a quick, panting whisper. "You saved
+him!"
+
+[Illustration: _"You saved the boy!" she said, in a quick, panting
+whisper_]
+
+Aylmer took the proffered hand, lifted his hat, smiled, and recognized
+the lady of the pier.
+
+He hesitated a moment. He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"No," he deprecated, and pointed to the other spear-man who was already
+wheeling to inspect his trophy. "Your thanks are due to our friend
+Despard, if anywhere."
+
+"No!" she contradicted vehemently. "Did I not see it? You were
+sacrificing yourself, doing it deliberately. And I shall never forget
+it--never!"
+
+He smiled again. He looked at the child who sat silent on the
+saddle-bow, staring down at him.
+
+"Still running away?" queried Aylmer, pleasantly. "Whither, this time?
+And what was the terrible hurry?"
+
+A guilty grin puckered the little man's lips.
+
+"I thought I knowed you; you're the man of--of yesterday," he shrilled.
+"I was running from Selim. He wanted me to take siesta, but I did wish
+to be in the hunt."
+
+Aylmer nodded.
+
+"The usual trouble," he said. "We all want to be in--or, at any rate, to
+see--the hunt. And we never pay any attention to Selims, worse luck.
+You'll learn more by experience, sonny."
+
+The child made a little gesture of protest.
+
+"That's not my name," he answered solemnly. "Mother calls me Jackanapes,
+or Jack. But I'm John, really, just John."
+
+"Just John," assented Aylmer. "Just John what?"
+
+"John Aylmer," said the boy and stared in surprise at his new friend's
+startled visage. But the other John Aylmer was not looking at his
+namesake. He was looking at the girl who held him.
+
+Her eyes answered the glance gravely, sternly, even defiantly, and in
+silence.
+
+"You?" cried Aylmer. "You are--?"
+
+She hesitated.
+
+"John's nurse," she said, looking him steadily in the face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE SHADOW OF A NAME
+
+
+For a moment there was silence between the two. Aylmer's fingers
+unconsciously wound and unwound a tiny lock of hair in the horse's mane.
+His eyes travelled over the woman's face and figure appraisingly; his
+brows contracted into a frown of puzzlement.
+
+He had seen little John Aylmer's mother once before, at her wedding nine
+years previously. She had been a girl, then, almost a child, and young
+for her age, which was barely eighteen. Her beauty had been the fresh,
+innocent _beauté du diable_. She was fair, blue-eyed, with a tendency to
+fragility. And if report told the truth, her beauty had wasted and her
+fragility increased through the cruel years of her husband's domination.
+A bare six months ago she had been freed. Her father's millions had
+helped her to a separation which English Courts had made a legal one.
+They had also given her the custody of her one child, the heir to the
+Aylmer name and the Landon title.
+
+This girl was fair, indeed; her eyes like the sea, her color fresh, her
+forehead bland and unwrinkled. But she was not the woman whose woes had
+made copy for a thousand newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic, whose
+sufferings had roused the storm of execration which had made the honest
+name of Aylmer a byword of dishonor and reproach. No, this was not his
+cousin Landon's wife.
+
+And yet?
+
+Feature for feature, line for line, she reminded him of the woman whose
+daintiness he remembered among the massed decorations of that New York
+cathedral those years ago.
+
+He sought bluntly for an explanation.
+
+"I, too, am John Aylmer," he said quietly. "Who are you?"
+
+The sudden thrill of surprise with which she clutched the child to her
+tightened the reins. The gray backed a step; it was as if horse and
+rider were alike repelled by his question.
+
+She stared at him with a sudden fierce aversion which was undisguised.
+
+"You are Landon's cousin--you?" she cried.
+
+He bowed his head.
+
+"I have that misfortune," he answered quietly.
+
+At the form of his answer a tinge of relief woke in her eyes, but they
+still watched him with incredulity and suspicion.
+
+"He--he has sent you?" she demanded. "You bring other proposals, or
+threats?"
+
+He smiled gravely.
+
+"We have shared nothing, except a club, he and I," he explained. "I have
+not set eyes on him for over a year."
+
+She still watched him alertly, debatingly, and still with mistrust.
+
+"How did you come here, and why?" she asked.
+
+"I am a member of the Tent Club," he answered. "I am in garrison at
+Gibraltar. I could not get leave till yesterday afternoon and I waited
+in Tangier to accompany Captain Rattier, whose ship is in harbor. Have I
+sufficiently explained myself?"
+
+She hesitated.
+
+"You have not seen your cousin for over a year? Perhaps you are in
+correspondence with him?"
+
+He showed signs of impatience.
+
+"We have not exchanged half a dozen letters in our lives!" he said
+emphatically.
+
+The lines of her face remained unsoftened. Her fierce grip on the
+child's shoulder did not relax.
+
+"And this Frenchman--this Captain Rattier?" she asked. "What of him?"
+
+His eyebrows expressed the intensity of his amazement.
+
+"Paul Rattier is my distant cousin," he answered. "No finer gentleman
+walks the earth." He paused for a moment. "Is it permitted to inquire
+why you suspect--strangers?"
+
+She did not answer him. An abstraction, real or feigned, seemed to have
+seized her. She stared out over his head into the distance with unseeing
+eyes as if she weighed problems, debated evidence, sought conclusions.
+It was the child who roused her into attention. He laughed, clapped his
+hands, and shouted.
+
+"Browny!" he clamored in delight. "Browny!"
+
+Aylmer looked round.
+
+Rattier, leading a very melancholy and still bleeding horse, had
+approached with Despard. Together they were bending over the major's
+trophy, the dead boar. Behind them Aylmer's horse was hobbling painfully
+to its feet. Despard looked up and shook an admonishing finger at his
+acclaimer.
+
+"You young rebel!" he cried. "You want a good smacking for your
+disobedience!"
+
+He slipped from the saddle as he spoke and led his horse towards them.
+He laid his hand familiarly on Aylmer's shoulder.
+
+"Hurt?" he asked.
+
+"Not in the least," said Aylmer, and then looked, with a significant
+lift of the eyebrow, from Despard to the gray horse's rider.
+
+Despard's face showed his own surprise.
+
+"Don't you know each other yet?" he marvelled. "Miss Van Arlen--Captain
+Aylmer."
+
+Uncertainty gripped Aylmer again. Landon had married a daughter of Jacob
+Van Arlen, the millionaire. A divorcée reverted to her maiden name, but
+surely not to her maiden title. But Despard had said Miss, most
+distinctly Miss.
+
+With his usual straightforward instinct to find the nearest way to probe
+a mystery, he looked at the girl herself. He became aware that her eyes
+had been upon his face with intentness.
+
+"Yes," she said quietly. "This," she patted the child's shoulder, "is my
+nephew."
+
+He gave a little sigh of appreciation and, he scarcely knew why, of
+relief. It was not possible, of course, that this girl, whose whole
+poise and carriage spoke of resolution and unfettered self-command,
+could be the woman, broken in health and spirit, who had cowered before
+her husband's glance, so some of the baser journals had hinted, even
+when she was seeking and had received the law's protection from him.
+
+And her eyes? They were not of that appealing blue which had shone
+beneath the bride's deep lashes on that half-forgotten wedding-day. They
+were blue, indeed, but they met his with something which was akin to
+defiance.
+
+She did not explain herself, but her glance was that of one who needed
+no warrant for her demeanor. Her attitude was not one of blatant
+aggressiveness, but was undoubtedly distrustful.
+
+He looked at the child with renewed interest.
+
+"Your sister is--where?" he asked quickly.
+
+The frown came swiftly back to her forehead.
+
+"You ask me that? Why?" she demanded.
+
+He looked at the boy.
+
+"Naturally I thought she might be with you," he answered. "As an Aylmer
+I should be glad to meet her."
+
+"Ah!" Her tone was hard and suspicious again. Unconsciously she gripped
+the child to her again with a fierceness which made him protest.
+
+"You hurt!" he complained. "You hurt, and I want to see the boar."
+
+With a sailor's instinctive fondness for children, Rattier, who had
+resigned his limping horse into the hands of one of the Arab beaters,
+turned towards him.
+
+"May I be permitted?" he said simply, and held out his arms. The child
+made a restless little movement towards him. "He'll show it me!" he
+cried joyously. "He'll take me!"
+
+Again she reined back, looking from one to the other with patent
+misgiving.
+
+"No!" she cried sharply. "You shall not touch him, either of you!" She
+made an appealing gesture towards Despard. "You must see me back to the
+camp!" she said.
+
+He was smiling with tranquil amusement, a smile which seemed to rouse
+her to anger.
+
+"Let us go now, at once!" she said, and wheeled her horse.
+
+Despard nodded, but did not dismiss the smile.
+
+"Might I inform you that Aylmer has been my friend since our Sandhurst
+days, and that I have shared his intimacy with Commandant Rattier for
+the last five years? I can vouch for them; I really can."
+
+She reined in her horse again and sat looking at all three with doubt
+still lurking in her eyes. Aylmer met her expression with unrestrained
+amazement. He found her mistrust of him a conundrum to which there was
+no answer. The Frenchman's shoulders rose and fell almost imperceptibly.
+His head was slanted with deferential acquiescence. He laid his hand
+upon Aylmer's arm.
+
+"Your horse?" he interposed.
+
+He pointed to it and to Absalaam, who had now arrived and was touching
+the wounds in its flank with delicate, probing fingers. The commandant's
+gesture seemed to imply that the situation in which they found
+themselves demanded a tactful retreat, and that here he indicated a
+dignified one.
+
+Aylmer still hesitated. He saw no reason why he should concur in his own
+dismissal; the idea grated on him. What had he done?
+
+It was Despard who took the edge of restraint off the situation. He
+swung himself back into the saddle, and pointed up the hill.
+
+"After all, the thing was a squeak," he allowed. "You are shaken." He
+turned and nodded slightly to the other two. "I will return and help
+with the horses; we shall have no other beat to-day."
+
+They smiled, bowed to his companion, and gave him answering nod. They
+understood. He was going to use the opportunity to sponsor them. Then he
+would return, and they would have their explanation. They watched him
+bend towards his companion as they rode away.
+
+"It is almost as if we diffused a contagion, you and I," speculated
+Rattier as they turned to Absalaam and the horses, but Aylmer made no
+effort to elaborate the issue. An inexplicable instinct to make the
+incident a personal rather than a general one had overtaken him. As he
+watched Despard ride away with his companion, he felt almost as if he
+were being defrauded. The relations between his cousin and her sister
+made a tie between Miss Van Arlen and himself; surely, in spite of
+everything, they were sufficient foundation upon which to found
+something more than a mere acquaintanceship. In the name of all the
+other decent-minded, clean-living Aylmers, he might have been allowed to
+make his and their protest against being held responsible for the
+knaveries of the head of their house.
+
+So it was with something of dissatisfaction in his aspect that he turned
+to Absalaam and the wounded horse. The Moor saw it but misunderstood its
+purport.
+
+"Merely a flesh wound, Sidi," he hastened to assure Aylmer. "A week,
+perhaps ten days, of rest and he is himself again. A small price to pay
+for so precious a thing as that child's life."
+
+Aylmer looked at him with tolerant amusement. Absalaam ibn Said had
+neither harem nor wife; his career had been notoriously one of unrest
+and adventure. These pious opinions issued oddly from his bachelor lips.
+
+"A small price indeed," he agreed pleasantly, "but a hundred youngsters
+run risks little less in the Sôk of Tangier every day."
+
+The Moor made a sweeping motion of the hand, as if he suddenly dropped
+the subject of conversation from a higher plane to a lower.
+
+"The children of the Sôk!" he cried contemptuously.
+"Khabyles--Arabs--Susi--Riffs! What are they? Little more than vermin;
+their ranks are replenished all too quickly as it is! But this one! Here
+we tell a different story, do we not?"
+
+Aylmer halted in his examination of the wounded pastern and looked up.
+There was something arresting in the Moor's vehemence.
+
+Absalaam caught the look and shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"The Sidi has not visited Tangier for five or six weeks?" he said.
+
+Aylmer nodded. And waited. He had had a good deal of experience of the
+Moor and his conversational methods. He was aware that the deferring of
+a climax till it could be launched on a tide of tantalization was the
+chiefest of them.
+
+"Therefore, Sid' Aylmer," continued the Moor, "you have not heard all
+the tales which center round this small one's fortunes?"
+
+Aylmer smiled and prepared to give his attention again to his horse. It
+was left to Rattier to ruin the pyramid of stimulation.
+
+"What tales?" he demanded laconically.
+
+Absalaam's brown eyes met both question and questioner with
+melancholy--almost, indeed, with scorn. How could one titillate, how
+could one embroider, how could one work up to a brave display of
+interest, if bald facts were to be wrung from one at this stage of a
+tale? He sighed.
+
+"Tales of his wealth and importance, Sidi," he answered, in accents of
+subjection.
+
+Rattier drew up the monocle which swung from a ribbon at his buttonhole
+and concentrated his stare upon the Moor.
+
+"Wealth?" he repeated tersely.
+
+Absalaam opened his arms to their widest and held his palms emptily
+outflung.
+
+"Wealth sufficient to buy all Tangier, all Fez, the whole of Mogrheb al
+Acksa, if a tenth of the reports be true. His life, therefore? How can
+one value it!"
+
+He beamed upon them. He had been robbed of his slowly forged
+culmination, but he had, at least, been able to offer them a surprise.
+
+Aylmer replaced upon the ground the hoof which he had been holding. He
+looked at the Moor good-humoredly.
+
+"So the gossip mongers of the Sôk credit this infant with riches?" he
+said. "On what evidence, if any?"
+
+Absalaam made a motion towards the sea.
+
+"In the harbor, when you landed, did you observe a yacht, Sidi--a white
+boat, with lines of gold at her cutwater and figurehead?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That boat lies there at the service of that child. They have taken for
+him the Villa Eulalia; they have surrounded it with tents of men who are
+there to do no more than guard his safety; there are servants, horses,
+donkeys. The Gibraltar steamer brings packets of provisions or what not
+several times a week. In the town their money flows."
+
+Rattier dropped his eyeglass.
+
+"I think, _mon ami_," he said slowly, "that gold must be freer with them
+than gratitude. Were you thanked for what you did? I don't seem to
+remember it."
+
+Aylmer shook his head.
+
+"That is the mystery," he agreed. "I did little enough, but I was going
+to be thanked--till I disclosed my name. Then," he shrugged his
+shoulders, "you saw."
+
+He meditated a minute. Then he burst out laughing.
+
+"I was not allowed even to hold him, and I am not at all sure that I am
+not his guardian!" he said suddenly.
+
+Rattier's surprise was evident, but he managed to concentrate it in a
+monosyllable.
+
+"Eh?" he demurred wonderingly.
+
+Aylmer gave an emphatic nod of the head.
+
+"I was coming home from China at the time of the marriage of my cousin
+Landon with this child's mother. I broke my journey in New York
+specially to attend it. And Landon, merely as a form, asked me as his
+kinsman to be a party to his settlement. In certain circumstances,
+including his death, I was to be one of the trustees for his children."
+
+"And he is dead, this cousin?"
+
+"No, my friend. Merely divorced. Where do I come in--where?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DESPARD EXPLAINS
+
+
+"Suppose we sit down long enough to smoke a cigarette," suggested
+Aylmer. "Perhaps the thump I received just now has had a disastrous
+effect upon my limited intelligence, but I confess that Miss Van Arlen's
+deportment remains a matter of mystery. What have I done?"
+
+Despard laughed gently. He had strolled back from the camp to meet his
+friends and had found them superintending the obsequies of the boar.
+These were performed by a Spaniard, one of the human jetsam cast up
+everywhere along the North African coast by tides of hazard and
+adventure which set from every quarter of the Mediterranean. The true
+son of Islam will not touch the _haloof_, the unclean jungle pig. And so
+Señor Bernardo Albareda, penniless derelict and strongly suspected of
+being a fugitive from the Spanish convict establishment at Melilla, was
+extracting the tusks. He held them up with a dramatic gesture of
+admiration.
+
+"Twice the length of my central finger, which is not a short one!" he
+remarked airily, and used the occasion to exhibit the elegances of a
+hand which had patently not occupied itself lately with manual toil. One
+or two of his compatriots, who had been among the beaters, were given
+the task of disposing of the flesh and bristles, and departed under his
+escort, carrying their burdens dependent from a couple of poles, the
+Arabs hastening to avoid even the shadow of contamination which they
+cast, and spitting with undisguised disfavor as they passed. Despard
+accepted his comrade's invitation and joined the other two upon the seat
+which they had made of a fallen mimosa stump in the shadow of the olive.
+
+The major took out his cigarette case, found a match, and sent several
+tiny clouds rolling up among the branches before he spoke. And his
+answer was another question.
+
+"You read the details of the Landon divorce case?" he hazarded.
+
+"Yes," said Aylmer. "One could hardly escape it."
+
+"You remember, then, that at the close the respondent was very nearly
+committed for contempt of court?"
+
+"He lost his temper, or his head," agreed Aylmer, "and threatened his
+wife. I don't think any one attached much importance to his vaporings."
+
+"Ah!" Despard nodded his head thoughtfully. "I suppose that would be the
+point of view with most people."
+
+"Not with yourself?" suggested Aylmer.
+
+Despard shook his head.
+
+"I have known the Van Arlens for many years," he said quietly. "Perhaps
+you have forgotten that my own mother was an American, that a good deal
+of my boyhood was passed in New York."
+
+"I didn't know you knew the Van Arlens; in fact, I could hardly suspect
+it, when to the best of my remembrance you never even discussed the
+Landon divorce case with me."
+
+Despard nodded.
+
+"No," he said, in a dry, unemotional voice. "I did not discuss it with
+any one. And you, moreover, were an Aylmer."
+
+He was silent for a minute and the other two looked at him a little
+curiously. This was not the Despard they were accustomed to, a sportsman
+whose hobbies engrossed him to the exclusion of most other topics. This
+was a man who had the force of pent feeling behind his words.
+
+"The Van Arlens naturally did not seek outside society at the time of
+the case," he continued, "but I was on leave, and I saw a good deal of
+them. Has it occurred to you," he added suddenly, "that this child is
+not only heir to the Landon title but to the Van Arlen millions--at
+present?"
+
+"No," said Aylmer, "but I suppose he is the only direct male
+descendant."
+
+"Do you realize what that means in America? To be a Landon, only a
+barony, though I grant you an old one, is a small thing compared with
+being the grandson of--the richest man in the world."
+
+Aylmer was silent. The point of view was one that did not easily present
+itself to his British complacency. Rattier, too, though he nodded
+assent, did it without vehemence and with a tinge of reserve. Of a
+royalist clique, transatlantic caste was outside his experience.
+
+"At any rate your cousin Landon realized it at last in realizing what he
+was losing. He moved every legal lever he could lay his hands upon to
+retain the custody of his child and failed. He is to see him twice a
+year, for an hour. You will understand that his chances of winning his
+child's profitable affections are too limited for his taste."
+
+Aylmer's brows met in a tiny frown of perplexity.
+
+"Profitable affection?" he meditated.
+
+"John is eight. In thirteen years he will be of age. His father then
+will be forty-five, and quite capable of getting much enjoyment out of
+his son's unlimited income."
+
+Rattier gave a little hissing intake of the breath.
+
+"This Landon!" he murmured admiringly.
+
+"The Court decided, also, that the child must be brought up, for nine
+months of every year, at any rate, in England. This was modified, after
+medical examination and certificate, to include Europe and North
+Africa."
+
+Aylmer made a little startled motion which dropped the ash of his
+cigarette upon his knee.
+
+"Eh?" he questioned. "Medical certificate?"
+
+"Phthisis," rejoined Despard, quietly. "The little chap has the seeds of
+it, but with care the seeds need never come to growth. But he has to
+winter in the South, invariably."
+
+Rattier made a tiny caressing motion of the hand which seemed to imply
+infinite commiseration. Aylmer expressed the same emotion in a little
+inarticulate murmur.
+
+"And so--?" he questioned. "And so--?"
+
+"And so Tangier," said Despard, "which has other conveniences, for the
+moneyed. The law, here, is always behind the dollars, is it not?"
+
+The other two looked at him debatingly.
+
+"The law?" mused Aylmer. "The law?"
+
+"They have already had experience of it in Italy and Spain--the Van
+Arlens. A man like Landon can make use of it there to further his own
+purposes, against the law. The Spanish and Italian police? Can you
+expect them to interfere against a man's dealings with his own child?
+What do they know of the fiats of the British Courts of Chancery? He
+made two very nearly successful attempts to get possession of the
+boy,--one at San Remo, one at Taormina."
+
+Aylmer gave a little low whistle of comprehension. Rattier nodded, still
+with a sort of grudging admiration of this English lord's talents and
+persistence.
+
+"Have you got it now?" went on Despard. "Do you see where they stand?
+Here, under the protections of the Bashaw, where Landon can never
+overbid them, they enjoy a security which they can obtain nowhere else
+outside America or Great Britain."
+
+Aylmer's eyes filled with a sudden shadow of loathing.
+
+"The scoundrel!" he cried. "The miscreant!"
+
+Despard nodded.
+
+"Quite so," he agreed. "The epithets any decent-minded man would apply
+to him. Unfortunately, he is without shame, reckless, and heedless of
+everything but his passionate desire to turn defeat into victory. He
+will stop at nothing to get even with those who have so far triumphed
+over him."
+
+"And the boy's mother lives here--with her sister?" said Aylmer.
+
+Despard did not reply for a moment. There was a queer pause and catch in
+his voice as if he sought uneasily for breath.
+
+"Miss Van Arlen is here, and the old man, Jacob Van Arlen, the
+grandfather."
+
+"And the mother?" asked Aylmer, with a note of surprise in his voice.
+"Lady Landon, or does one call her Mrs. Van Arlen?"
+
+"She is broken down in health," answered Despard, in a curiously wooden,
+expressionless accent. "She has been--recommended to try for at least
+six months the effects of an Alpine Sanatorium."
+
+The two listeners understood, or thought they understood, and muttered
+their sympathy in an almost inaudible chorus.
+
+"Insane?" they whispered. "Insane?"
+
+Despard smote his hand down upon the rotting wood.
+
+"No!" he cried fiercely. "Her brain is as sound as yours or mine, but
+her heart has been frozen. By God! Try to think, imagine, if you can,
+what hell a woman has lived in who was the wife of Landon!"
+
+His passion seemed to choke him. His eyes glowed, his chest heaved, he
+was another man from the one who had sat down smilingly to smoke a
+cigarette with them a few minutes before. And the passion of his wrath
+infected his hearers. Imagination painted pictures in their brains;
+they, too, breathed a little faster as they listened.
+
+The gust of Despard's passion passed and left him calm again. He gave a
+tiny shrug of the shoulders, which seemed to imply apology. He began to
+speak with ordinary unshaken accents.
+
+"It was I who suggested Tangier to the Van Arlens. I am in garrison at
+Gibraltar; I can see them at frequent intervals; I introduced them to
+the Foreign Colony here. The Anstruthers have done their best to make
+them at home. I got Absalaam to be their dragoman, and I don't think you
+will find a better or more versatile one between Tripoli and Mogador.
+They have the most suitable villa outside the town. The Bashaw has been
+given to understand the situation, has been generously tipped, and is
+doing his best to keep his side of the bargain. The men who guard them
+are picked and know that matters will reach an extreme of unpleasantness
+for them if their vigilance is allowed to relax. All has been done that
+can be done. And yet--?" He shrugged his shoulders again. "They share
+the anxieties of Damocles," he added. "They live under a sword which may
+fall at any moment."
+
+He rose, flicked the cigarette ash from his sleeve, and made a motion
+towards the hill.
+
+"Shall we be getting on?" he asked. "The sun waits for no one."
+
+They rose slowly and began to follow the distant line of beaters. Aylmer
+linked his hand through Despard's arm.
+
+"Miss Van Arlen understood ... what we feel ... all we Aylmers, about
+Landon?" he asked.
+
+Despard hesitated.
+
+"I put it to her, strongly," he answered.
+
+There was something not entirely convincing in the reply. Aylmer's voice
+showed anxiety.
+
+"But--but she cannot imagine that we, or any decent-minded man, could
+view him with anything but loathing?"
+
+There was still a perceptible pause before Despard's reply.
+
+"I didn't tell her yesterday that you were coming," he said. "Indeed,
+Anstruther only informed me last night. I thought it would be well that
+you should arrive and make a good impression before she learned your
+name. Then, you see, as it happened, you exploded it on her rather
+startlingly. And she, at the time, was rather shaken."
+
+"And this means--?" said Aylmer, impatiently.
+
+"It means," answered Despard, debatingly, "that your name recalls
+memories to her which, unfortunately, do not prepossess you in her
+favor. And, I think, that, being a woman ... your service to the
+child ... your saving of him ... under the circumstances ... acted
+against you."
+
+Aylmer turned and looked into his friend's face with amazement.
+
+"But--but I don't understand!" he stammered. "That's unjust!"
+
+Despard shook his head.
+
+"Not entirely," he demurred. "It's feminine; it's jealousy. It is hard
+to her that you should have saved the child's life. I could see that,
+and combated it, during the few minutes in which we rode back to camp."
+
+Aylmer was frowning. He dropped Despard's arm, thrust his own hands into
+his pockets, and stared out into the distance. He shook his head.
+
+"No!" he said suddenly. "I can't quite follow it. No woman with that
+girl's ... eyes ... would be so ... shabby ... if she understood!"
+
+Rattier gave him an impulsive little nod.
+
+"If?" he enunciated slowly. "If?"
+
+Despard threw the Frenchman a grateful glance.
+
+"That's it," he agreed. "His name is Aylmer. So far she has not got
+beyond that fact, my friend."
+
+Aylmer looked round at them both. There was something calculating in the
+way in which he surveyed the two, as if they were factors in a situation
+which had hitherto eluded him, but which was now beginning to take
+definite shape. And his lips had set one upon the other in a rigid line.
+His chin seemed to have attained incongruous squareness beneath the
+suave droop of his moustache.
+
+"She's got to believe in me!" he announced grimly. "I won't let her be
+unworthy of herself."
+
+And the other two noticed that as he said it he nodded to himself two or
+three times decidedly. He drew himself up; unconsciously his carriage
+grew stiffer. It was as if he had mapped out and settled a matter
+definitely. He began to talk and laugh naturally, and on other subjects.
+And if any allusion to the day's adventure outcropped into the
+conversation he did not avoid it, but simply passed it by without
+comment. He had taken his line. The incident, apart from his resolution,
+was closed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As the three strolled up to the camp a man rose from the group which sat
+in the shadow of the awning at the door of the largest tent and came out
+to meet them. He was tall, white-haired, aquiline of feature. And his
+pervading characteristic seemed to be gravity. His figure and face alike
+were unbending.
+
+He made them a studied little bow.
+
+"My daughter tells me, Captain Aylmer," he said, "that I have to thank
+you for your prompt action on behalf of my grandson. You saved him from
+a situation of grave peril."
+
+Aylmer realized that this was without doubt Jacob Van Arlen. He
+suspected, also, why the old man had thus addressed him without waiting
+for an introduction. For men who are introduced, amid the intimate
+sociabilities of the Tangier Tent Club, at any rate, usually shake
+hands. Van Arlen's right hand held his sombrero; his left was at his
+side.
+
+Aylmer returned the bow.
+
+"I did no more than what had obviously to be done," he said quietly.
+"Despard merits your thanks more than I."
+
+The other looked at the major with a distinct tinge of relief.
+
+"Is that so?" he asked hopefully.
+
+"No!" said Despard, laconically. "Your thanks are not in the least
+misdirected, Mr. Van Arlen."
+
+The old man made another courteous inclination of the head.
+
+"I thought I could not so far have misunderstood my daughter," he
+answered. "I hope, Captain Aylmer, that while you remain in Tangier I
+may be permitted to serve you in any way which you like to command.
+Perhaps, though, your stay is short?"
+
+And there was hopefulness in this last query. It was patent amid the
+studied urbanity of the tone. In spite of himself Aylmer smiled.
+
+"I am a bird of passage," he said lightly. "I manage to take short leave
+for most of the Tent Club meetings, to which Colonel Anstruther is kind
+enough to make me welcome."
+
+He strode forward as he spoke and began to exchange greetings with Mrs.
+Anstruther, who rose to meet him. He had to hear the morning's story
+re-discussed, exclaimed over, criticized. He bore it, without
+impatience, but with a certain aloofness which gave the subject no
+chance to endure. He managed skilfully, at last, to divert the
+conversation into other channels.
+
+Anstruther, who had sat between his wife and Miss Van Arlen, had risen
+to welcome Commandant Rattier. The mishap to the latter's horse
+engrossed their attention; they wandered off together to examine the
+wounded limb. After a moment's hesitation Aylmer sank into the vacant
+chair.
+
+He looked round at the girl. Her eyes met his, but her hand, as if
+acting by some automatic command of the brain, touched her skirt and
+pulled it toward herself, and away from him. His lips grew a thought
+more rigid behind the veiling moustache. But his voice was entirely
+divested of any semblance of pique.
+
+"And how is my small cousin?" he asked pleasantly. "Has Selim persuaded
+him to take that long-deferred siesta?"
+
+Old Van Arlen stirred restlessly on his seat. He looked at Aylmer, his
+lips moved as if to speech, and then closed again. Miss Van Arlen sat up
+very straight.
+
+"Do you mean my nephew?" she asked frigidly.
+
+"Your nephew and my cousin," said Aylmer, cheerfully. "I hardly expected
+to find a relation here when I started this morning."
+
+Her eyes grew stormy with suspicion, almost with hate.
+
+"Are you sure?" she demanded suddenly.
+
+"Quite sure," said Aylmer, halting for a scarcely perceptible moment
+before her meaning reached him. "I have found only friends--so far."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+MR. MILLER
+
+
+Outside their own country two British types carry their caste marks
+patently. They are the tourist and the officer. Gibraltar abounds with
+both, the company of the first having an occasional and transient
+superiority when it is swollen by Transatlantic arrivals or intermittent
+yachting cruisers. But the officers of the garrison and their wives and
+daughters are the reigning members of the informal club which makes
+Society on the Rock. They know each other, they discuss each other; the
+longer they stay the more parochial grow their interests. Newcomers
+undergo a period of silent probation. They cannot slip in unobserved.
+The who and the whence test is applied to each with unction, sometimes
+without justice, but almost invariably with good-humor. As a consequence
+everybody, within limits, knows something about everybody else.
+
+There are exceptions, and one, an olive-complexioned, gray-clad,
+gray-haired, dark-eyed man, was walking steadily down the Waterport one
+sunny afternoon as a rush of cabs towards the custom-house proclaimed
+the incoming of an important steamer. Mr. William Miller had a
+pleasantly situated cottage in the South Town. The postman knew that he
+had many correspondents in Spain, England, Germany, and elsewhere.
+Moorish visitors from across the straits were not infrequent at a small
+office which he retained in Waterport Street. Men of letters, desiring
+information on recondite subjects, separated themselves from the
+frivolous landing parties of Messrs. Cook and called at the same
+address. No one had ever tapped the sources of Mr. Miller's encyclopædic
+knowledge in vain. No one had found him otherwise than affable. And
+though it was understood that his activities were literary, no resident
+or tourist had successfully probed the nature of his life-work.
+
+The wives of many colonels had recognized this and had flung themselves
+with ardor against the breastworks of his imperturbability. Not one of
+them could look back with pride on any action in which they had won even
+a temporary advantage. Mr. Miller spoke freely, showed an intimate
+knowledge of men and manners throughout the civilized world, and
+appeared to manifest pleasure in sociabilities. His only attempts to
+return these lay in small but eclectic tea-parties whereat he displayed
+hoards of artistic treasures and discoursed learnedly of carpet dye and
+porcelain marks.
+
+But he was by no means a ladies' man. He accepted, and was welcome at
+the hospitalities of many a mess or gun room. He sang well and could
+play a more than ordinary effective accompaniment to a comic song after
+hearing the air whistled half a dozen times by its would-be interpreter.
+The impersonality of his social attitude prevented his being popular,
+but he was an institution. As he walked along he bowed, nodded, smiled;
+obviously he knew everybody. Obviously everybody knew him.
+
+As he walked across the sunlit square and dived into the deeply shadowed
+tunnel which is the Waterport, a tender fussed noisily up to the quay.
+Mr. Miller eyed the passengers on its deck keenly.
+
+The steamer was evidently a White Star in from New York. The load of
+colossal trunks upon the deck would have told him that apart from the
+accent of the passengers and the flag at the masthead. Baggage agents
+began to dart here and there; Mr. Cook's uniformed interpreters were in
+the forefront of the fray; Spanish cab runners yelled and grimaced.
+
+Mr. Miller stood aside without attempting to force a way into the
+tumult. His hands rested quietly together on the hilt of his cane. His
+brow was contemplative and unruffled. Certainly if he awaited anything
+he was in no hurry to find it.
+
+All things come to those who wait, and Mr. Miller had not to wait long.
+A man strode suddenly out of the custom-house gate, thrust aside the
+Spanish porter who was snatching at his handbag, and made a beckoning
+motion towards a cab.
+
+Mr. Miller strode quietly forward and reached it simultaneously with the
+fare.
+
+The man looked at him with a sudden irritable alertness and then broke
+into a grin.
+
+"You're here," he said, and flung his bag upon the seat. The other
+responded with a tiny shrug as if he deprecated the platitudinous nature
+of the remark. He motioned the man to take his seat, sat down beside
+him, and told the driver the name of an hotel. "Your man is looking
+after your heavy luggage?" he questioned.
+
+The other nodded impatiently.
+
+"Yes," he said. "Not that there's much to look after." He turned and
+glanced into his companion's face. "I'm getting down to bed-rock now;
+nothing left to waste on trivialities. I nearly came second class."
+
+Miller's eyebrows rose.
+
+"That would have been unnecessary." He speculated.
+
+"Imbecile, as it turned out," agreed the man. "There were some
+bridge-playing Southerners on board, old school, couldn't bring
+themselves to be civil to the New Yorkers, but ready to take an
+Englishman, and a lord, moreover, to their hearts. No high play, but I'm
+eight hundred dollars up on the voyage."
+
+Miller nodded placidly.
+
+"Bed-rock is quite a way down yet," he smiled.
+
+"Not if expenses are to mount as you advised me in your last letter,"
+snapped the other. "Has anything been done?"
+
+Miller shook his head slowly.
+
+"Force is beyond us," he said, "for we don't possess it. Bribery is out
+of the question; there is no one left by the other side who has not had
+his price. Opportunity may be ours. We must await it."
+
+"And waiting costs twenty pounds a week!"
+
+The gray man turned his opened palm outwards with a deprecative motion
+which was not English at all.
+
+"My dear Lord Landon, how can Opportunity be seized if there is no one
+to meet her when she appears?"
+
+Landon gave a dissatisfied grunt.
+
+"How many lacqueys have you set to wait on her?"
+
+"Six," said Miller, succinctly. "Six men of action, who would have
+succeeded before now, but for an accident."
+
+Landon's face took on the eager expression of a wolf to whom a distant
+taint is brought by the evening wind.
+
+"Eh?" he cried. "There has been a chance, then; their defences are not
+impregnable?"
+
+Miller shook his head.
+
+"They have been strengthened since," he said diffidently. "But the weak
+spot in them is the child himself. He has never had, if you will pardon
+the remark, proper control. He is frankly disobedient of the precautions
+with which they surround him."
+
+Landon grinned.
+
+"There's my blood in him," he chuckled. "And, by God, I'm fond of the
+little toad, too. It's not only to spite her, Miller, or for the money
+that's in it. I never took the trouble to whop him; I believe he'd come
+to me of his own accord, if he had the chance."
+
+"It's a large if," suggested Mr. Miller, politely.
+
+Landon made no retort. His face had assumed a meditative mask; his lips
+were firmly pressed together; he had the effect of one who calculates
+pro against con.
+
+"That's why I think it's time I took a hand," he said suddenly. "We'll
+knock off three of your six, Miller. I am prepared to be a host in
+myself."
+
+For the moment the other said nothing. They had swung out of the
+Waterport Street and turned the sharp corner which brought them to the
+entrance of the hotel. He listened quietly as his companion demanded the
+number of the room engaged for him, received his letters, and entered
+the lift. He accompanied him silently. It was not till they were left
+alone that he pulled a pocket-book out, tranquilly turned the leaves,
+and consulted an entry.
+
+"I note that I have had no remittance from you, Lord Landon," he
+announced, "since November."
+
+"Six weeks ago," agreed Landon, languidly. "Six times twenty is a
+hundred and twenty. You reinforce my argument, my good Miller. A hundred
+and twenty pounds gone and you show me--nothing."
+
+The other coughed a dry, perfunctory little cough.
+
+"As far as I am concerned, the money is, as you say, gone," he allowed,
+"but you have just come by one hundred and sixty sovereigns owing to the
+complacence of these Southern gentlemen on board your boat. That puts us
+right and safeguards another fortnight."
+
+Landon nodded and answered in a voice as dry as his own.
+
+"That is a matter for discussion," he intimated. "I should like to hear
+these expenses justified to some appreciable extent. What was the chance
+which failed?"
+
+"Though it failed," rejoined Miller, "it proved the advantage of
+constant vigilance. The child separated himself from his guardians in
+the very midst of the late afternoon traffic and got into the hands of
+one of our men. They reached the pier together; they were within an ace
+of success. Then Fate interfered--it must have been Fate," he
+interpolated with the ghost of a grin--"because her instrument was of
+your own house."
+
+Landon came to a sudden halt in the opening of an envelope.
+
+"What's that?" he cried quickly. "A relation of mine?"
+
+"Captain John Aylmer, R.A., Assistant Secretary to the new Military
+Works Commission," answered Miller, sedately.
+
+Landon swore. Then suddenly he began to laugh.
+
+"It's quaint," he conceded. "It's damned quaint, Miller. And he
+did--what?"
+
+Miller shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Interested himself in the situation, caused a delay which was fatal,
+for the moment, to our success. He cross-questioned the child and our
+man had to save himself, alone."
+
+Landon laughed again.
+
+"And he knew, this cousin of mine? He knew whose child it was?"
+
+"Not then, but now, I imagine. He has met him since, at the Tent Club.
+He has also met your late father-in-law."
+
+"What? The Kite--old Jacob--he's there?"
+
+"Personally superintending a situation which gets daily more
+impenetrable, for us. Each fright we give them adds another palisade to
+the defence."
+
+Landon took up the letters which he had laid down and went on opening
+and glancing through them. He pursed up his lips into an obstinately set
+expression; he assumed the air of a bargainer who has reached the limit
+of his purpose. For he fully understood the drift of Mr. Miller's
+remarks.
+
+"We had better be plain with each other," he said at last. "My little
+expedition to the States has been a failure. As a matrimonial
+proposition I am, for the present, out of the running. They told me to
+come again in a year's time. Title-hunting American women have short
+memories, but some beastly reporter recognized me and ran two columns of
+reminiscences of the trial. That queered me, and after all the decree is
+not made absolute for another six months."
+
+"Is this anticipatory of the announcement that those eight hundred
+dollars are the only support between you and bed-rock after all?"
+
+"You jump at my meaning. I'm going to take over the duties of your six,
+or of some of them, at any rate."
+
+The other's gray eyes reviewed his companion with a keenly calculating
+glance. There was no irritation in it, rather there was satisfaction.
+Mr. Miller did not present the aspect of a man whose chances of
+receiving a debt of one hundred and twenty pounds had been made
+doubtful. He had more the look of a bull speculator watching a tape as
+the eighths and sixteenths are added every few minutes to the stock
+which he commands.
+
+"You will fail," he said drily. "Without funds you must fail. One poor
+man, in spite of the story books, can do nothing against a hundred and
+wealth."
+
+"Possibly," said Landon. "But one may be permitted to try."
+
+"No," said the other, stolidly. "One may not be permitted, in Tangier."
+
+Landon looked up and for a moment silence hung heavily between the two
+men. The one who stood was the picture of heavy, imperturbable
+resolution. Landon, sitting back in his chair, was animate with energy,
+with a sort of tenseness which was almost magnetic. It was as if a
+panther faced a rhinoceros.
+
+Then Landon shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Am I being threatened, my dear Miller?" he asked quietly.
+
+"You are being informed," said the other. "The Syndicate which I
+represent is willing to finance you, for an adequate return. Without
+that it proposes to make Tangier an impossible residence for you."
+
+Landon stared his surprise and his obvious relief.
+
+"They are going to speculate in me?" He pondered for a moment. "I don't
+promise, or I haven't promised, that I shall allow old Jacob to buy the
+child back, if we get him, at all."
+
+Miller nodded weightily.
+
+"That does not matter to us," he announced. "That is as you like."
+
+Landon's eyes were still wide and debating.
+
+"Then your return comes--where?" he asked.
+
+"We are willing to wait for it," said the other. "The first service we
+require from you is that you will renew your acquaintance with your
+cousin, Captain Aylmer, and endeavor to remove the distaste which I
+regret to think he feels for your company."
+
+Landon bent forward, leaned his elbows on the table and his chin on his
+closed fists. He stared at his companion with a concentrated,
+dispassionate examination which seemed to probe and fathom through the
+depths of the other's impenetrability.
+
+Miller met the scrutiny with no other manifestation than an, if
+possible, increase of apathy.
+
+Landon dropped his hands slowly upon the table and gave his head a tiny
+shake.
+
+"I don't understand you," he said. "Why has my cousin a distaste for my
+society? We have never been in collision. As a matter of fact, he was
+best man at my wedding."
+
+"It is to be supposed that he read the account of your divorce," said
+the other, stolidly. "He has now made the acquaintance of your wife's
+relations."
+
+"I see," said Landon, slowly. "Is that all?"
+
+"Isn't it enough? Are you generally received?"
+
+There was something callous, almost brutal, in the man's tone. The tiny
+spot of color which began to burn in Landon's sallow cheek was evidence
+that he recognized it.
+
+"So," he answered, "I am to eat dirt at the hands of Captain John
+Aylmer? I am to appear to like it? Why?"
+
+"Because," said Miller, dispassionately, "you are practically
+penniless. That is your side of the question. Our side is that your
+cousin happens to be what he is--Secretary to the Military Works
+Commission, who hold the immediate future of Gibraltar in their hands."
+
+For the second time, and through a longer silence, the two stared at
+each other. As the fiery torch of comprehension burned brightly on
+Landon's face, rose to his forehead, seemed, indeed, to gleam in his
+eyes, his lips, which were at first grim and rigid, curled slowly into a
+sneer.
+
+"By the Lord!" he swore. "By the Lord, Miller, you have an impudence!"
+
+"I have a knowledge of values," said the other, impassively. "I wish to
+get my commission both ways. I expect it from you, because you get the
+job from no one else. I expect it from my employers, because you are
+practically the only tool at present, which they can use. I am perfectly
+open with you."
+
+"As open as the Pit!" snarled Landon. "As candid as midnight! Let's have
+a taste of it plainly. What is it you want of me--robbery?"
+
+Miller made a gesture of deprecation.
+
+"I want you to--borrow--unknown to your cousin, certain books, the
+nature of which will be indicated to you in detail."
+
+"And if I don't?"
+
+"You must, at any rate, try."
+
+"And if I won't?"
+
+Miller smiled.
+
+"We don't discuss absurdities."
+
+There was nothing manifestly menacing in this, but there was a sense of
+finality. It reached Landon like a shaft of cold air blown in through
+the suddenly opened door. Mentally he flinched from it; he lifted his
+shoulders into a shrug of resignation.
+
+"Where are his quarters?"
+
+"In the South Town near my own cottage. For the moment that does not
+matter. You meet him to-morrow, by accident. You do not know, you see,
+that he is here?"
+
+He consulted a small time-table.
+
+"We should be on the quay about three-thirty to-morrow, when the steamer
+gets in from Tangier."
+
+For the second time Landon expressed surrender with a passive shrug.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+LANDON'S NEW PROFESSION
+
+
+As Despard and Aylmer passed out of the dark of the Waterport into the
+sunlight of the square, two men, who walked in front of them, halted,
+shook hands, appeared to exchange an informal farewell, and separated.
+One, clad in gray flannels and a gray sombrero, turned to the left and
+began to mount the ramp behind the barracks. The other strolled slowly
+on.
+
+The two soldiers fresh from their crossing of the straits from Africa
+were hailed and questioned more than once by comrades or friends who had
+not been fortunate enough to share in leave for the Tent Club meeting
+and were anxious for the last details of sport. How did pig run this
+time? Had such and such coverts been burned as was reported? What luck
+had they had personally? Despard and Aylmer had to halt half a dozen
+times within the first two furlongs. They began to regret that they had
+not taken a cab.
+
+The man who strolled along in front of them halted, too, here and there.
+He did not appear to look round, but whenever acquaintances buttonholed
+the pair behind him it was noticeable that shop windows or Moorish curio
+sellers claimed his attention. He lingered, indeed, opposite a
+well-known book shop till his sudden resumption of his stroll brought
+him into collision with the others at the exact moment of their
+passing.
+
+He started, muttered a perfunctory apology, and then made an
+exclamation.
+
+"Jack!" he cried gladly, and held out his hand.
+
+Aylmer met his cousin's glance, first with surprise, then with a sudden
+stiffening of his lips, finally with frowning. He gave a side glance at
+Despard.
+
+The major's face was transfigured with wrath and loathing. He was
+looking at Landon as he might have looked at a poisonous reptile. He
+drew back a step of instinctive repulsion.
+
+Landon gave a bitter little laugh. He still held out his hand defiantly.
+
+"Isn't it fit to be shaken, Jack?" he asked. "Have I to thank the
+Galahad at your side for that?"
+
+Despard's eyes grew grim and set. He turned to Aylmer and nodded coldly.
+
+"See you later," he suggested, without another look in Landon's
+direction, and passed on his way with unhesitating strides. Venomously,
+malignantly, Landon watched him go.
+
+"I don't wonder he won't face me!" he cried with well-simulated passion.
+"By God, I don't!"
+
+He turned and stared at his cousin. Aylmer met his gaze coolly,
+unhesitatingly, and without a trace of relenting. For the second time
+Landon's bitter laugh escaped him.
+
+"You've had his version?" he said. "Well, I don't altogether wonder at
+you in that case."
+
+"I don't understand you," said Aylmer, quietly. "The public prints have
+made it quite evident that you're not fit for the society of decent men,
+if that is what you mean."
+
+"No!" snarled Landon. "It isn't what I mean. What I mean is that that
+blackguard who's just left us, curse him! has won all round. He took my
+wife from me and now he's taken my reputation, my honor, and he's gone
+far to take every friend I have. But by the Lord who made me, Jack, I
+thought that you might be left with some sense of justice!"
+
+"Justice?"
+
+Aylmer's voice made an echo to Landon's. "Justice?" he repeated. "You
+got that, or less than that in most men's opinion, in the divorce
+court."
+
+"I didn't!" said Landon, fiercely. "Ah, they made a pretty story of it!
+The blackguard who knocked his wife about, who thrashed his child, who
+took his wife's allowance and flung it under a dunghill of drink and
+devilry. That was me! Who gave evidence? The wife herself, who has since
+gone into a lunatic asylum. Servants who were bought with that old
+miser's gold. The man who wanted her--Despard!"
+
+In spite of himself Aylmer gave an almost imperceptible quiver of
+surprise.
+
+Landon laughed again.
+
+"Does that touch you?" he cried. "He wouldn't tell you that. Not of how
+he schemed, and laid traps, and sunk pitfalls for me, to catch me, as I
+was caught. I'm no saint, Lord knows, but I've never sunk to that. I've
+had my game and paid my price, but, by God, I've never cheated!"
+
+Aylmer's eyes still met his with level contempt.
+
+"I know Despard, I've known him since boyhood," he answered. "He does
+not do these things."
+
+Landon shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Of course! I'm down and you're all stamping me into the mud, lower and
+lower. You've all taken the accepted view, and when I cry out against it
+I'm told I've had my chance. So I did, but it was never a fair one."
+
+"You have still six months in which to give your version to the King's
+Proctor if you have any new facts to support your statement," said
+Aylmer, coldly.
+
+"Facts! How am I to get the benefit of facts when the other side can
+manufacture answers for them with a dollar for my every penny? I've
+supplied 'facts' to the King's Proctor till I'm sick of the sight of his
+office paper assuring me that he has 'no evidence to justify my
+contentions.' I can give facts enough. It's a hearing I want--an
+impartial hearing!"
+
+Aylmer shook his head.
+
+"You got it," he said doggedly. "You got it!"
+
+Landon rapped his stick upon the pavement.
+
+"I tell you I didn't!" he cried. "I tell you that I could tell you
+things that would prove to you--yes, prove--that the whole job was got
+up by that scoundrel who's just left us--got up by him to steal my wife
+from me. I ask you to hear me; I appeal to you to listen to my side; I
+appeal to your sense of justice!"
+
+Aylmer turned up the street.
+
+"If you think there is anything to be gained by it, say on!" he
+answered. "You can walk with me as far as my quarters."
+
+"You won't ask me in?" sneered Landon. "That's more than I can expect."
+
+"Some of the fellows might look in on me--decent fellows," explained
+Aylmer, drily.
+
+Landon gave a little gasp, halted, and leaned suddenly against the wall.
+He looked up at his cousin. His lips worked, he stammered, he broke into
+a panting storm of sobs.
+
+"I didn't deserve that! My God! I didn't deserve that!" he cried.
+
+Aylmer looked down at him and a tiny thrill of compunction shot through
+him. He hesitated. He did not believe in Landon's protestations. He
+knew, in every instinct of his nature, that Landon was a scoundrel. But
+he began to remember that it had not always been so. Things that had
+brought them together as boys came back to him. His memory suddenly
+framed a picture of that wedding nine years ago. Landon had gone to meet
+his bride gallantly, adoringly, that day. He had loved her then. Yes, he
+could not have acted that, he had loved her then.
+
+And Landon, watching narrowly his cousin's face, read the emotions as
+they chased each other across it as if they had been writ upon an open
+page. He hugged himself mentally.
+
+"That's what knocks him!" he told himself triumphantly. "The abased
+ingenuous sinner! A little more of that and, Great Nicholas! I have him
+by the short hairs!"
+
+He pulled himself together with a well-acted effort. He turned and drew
+back.
+
+"You cur!" he cried. "You cur, to hit at a man who's down!"
+
+Aylmer's tanned cheek showed through it a tiny flush. The dart had gone
+home.
+
+"When you prove that an apology's due, I'll make it."
+
+"In the street!" sneered Landon. "I'm to shout my wrongs, tell you all
+the intimate story of my provocation before the town. Thank you for
+nothing!"
+
+Aylmer made a little movement of the hand which implied irritation.
+
+"You can come to my quarters," he said, "but--"
+
+"This evening?"
+
+"No, this evening I'm dining out. You can come to my quarters. Until you
+give me reason to alter my opinion I don't introduce you to my friends.
+Is that understood?"
+
+Landon stood silent for another instant before he answered slowly.
+
+"Yes," he agreed. "You've read and been told enough to excuse you. Yes,
+I'll come. And in half an hour you'll be begging my pardon, or--"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Or what?" said Aylmer, quietly.
+
+"Or I shall know you've made up your mind not to be convinced."
+
+And then a sudden taciturnity overtook him. He marched along at his
+cousin's side, his eyes bent upon the pavement, his brows contracted. He
+had the appearance of one who considers deeply. John Aylmer made no
+attempt to resume conversation. He concluded that Landon was either
+piecing together a story out of unpromising material which would leave
+considerable gaps to be filled or, which was more likely, evolving one
+out of his vivid imagination. In either case he was content to leave the
+issue to be ascertained in the privacy of his quarters.
+
+They gained them uninterrupted. Aylmer made a sign towards a chair.
+Landon, after an expressive glance towards the Tantalus on the
+sideboard, sat down. Aylmer did not take the hint; he was in no mood to
+offer hospitality to this man, even to the inconsiderable extent of a
+whisky and soda.
+
+He looked at Landon.
+
+"Well?" he demanded curtly.
+
+Landon gave another look towards the sideboard.
+
+"I've hinted once," he said, with a laugh which he tried to make genial
+and offhand. "This time I'll ask bluntly for it."
+
+"For what?"
+
+There was no encouragement in Aylmer's voice, and his eyes were hard and
+unrelenting.
+
+"For a drink."
+
+Aylmer shook his head.
+
+"Suppose I hear your statement first," he suggested. "Then you can have
+a drink here, or elsewhere."
+
+Landon rose to his feet with a dramatic jerk. He turned abruptly towards
+the door.
+
+"That's enough, by God! that's enough!" he swore savagely. "I've taken
+your insolence once; I'll not take it again. I'm not fit to be offered a
+drink in your rooms; I'm to sit like some damned flunkey giving his
+character while you cross-examine me. I'll see you on the far side of
+Hell first."
+
+He reached the door, halted, and stood with hand on it, looking round.
+
+"You'll be sorry for this," he said. "I tell you that, when the truth of
+it comes to be known, as it'll be known some day, you'll be sorry for
+it."
+
+Aylmer looked at him with a steady contemplation which showed no signs
+of clemency. Landon flung open the door and passed out.
+
+"Cursed prig!" he snapped and descended the stairs into the street.
+Aylmer, with a slight shrug of the shoulders, turned towards his
+dressing-room.
+
+Ten minutes later Landon was enjoying his drink in Mr. Miller's
+pleasantly furnished apartments. His host had supplied it this time
+without any demur--with alacrity. He watched his guest dispose of it
+and hastened to offer another. This, too, disappeared down Landon's
+throat and a third was placed solicitously at his elbow. Not till these
+arrangements had been completed did Mr. Miller smirch his hospitality
+with any hint of business. But though he differed from Aylmer in this,
+he imitated him in the directness of his _pour-parlers_. He, indeed,
+used the same monosyllable.
+
+"Well?" he said inquiringly.
+
+Landon nodded with much satisfaction.
+
+"I got in," he said briefly. "I was only there two minutes, at a liberal
+computation, but I've found out and done all I required. He's dining out
+to-night. The books, as you expected, are in an ordinary bookcase, glass
+fronted, with an ordinary padlock on it. What fools these War Office
+experts are! There was a spare latch-key of his rooms hanging on a hook
+on the wall, for the servant, I suppose. I nicked it as I went out. I
+met the servant on the stairs--just as well, if I run across him
+to-night. There will be nothing rummy in my returning to see his master.
+I purposely dragged my coat against the passage whitewash, and after he
+offered to brush it for me I gave him half a crown. So he's all right;
+he thinks I'm a worthy gentleman who ought to be encouraged to call
+often. Is that all right?"
+
+Mr. Miller smiled.
+
+"You show such talents and attention to detail, my dear Lord Landon," he
+answered, "that I grieve that I am not the happy partner of such a
+colleague permanently."
+
+Landon looked across at him with a grin.
+
+"Seriously?" he demanded.
+
+"Quite seriously," replied the impassive Mr. Miller.
+
+Landon meditated.
+
+"If there is good money in it--?" he mused slowly, but his host hastened
+to interrupt him energetically.
+
+"Excellent money," he assured him, "and we have always a use for a
+lord."
+
+Landon grinned again.
+
+"Perhaps my value will increase after this evening," he suggested. "When
+do you purpose going?"
+
+"Would half-past nine suit you?" said Miller, affably, and Landon
+nodded.
+
+"Charmed, I'm sure," he grinned again, and tossed off his third glass
+with unction. "Here's luck!" he cried, and Mr. Miller, who used spirits
+sparingly, and in the afternoon not at all, was forced to include
+himself in the aspiration with the good fellowship which is implied in a
+courteous bow.
+
+At half-past nine Aylmer's soldier servant found, as Landon had
+prophesied, nothing extraordinary in his master's guest's return. The
+glint of a second half crown shone persuasively in that guest's hand as
+he expressed his desire to write a note to await the master's coming. He
+was shown without any demur into the sitting-room, and supplied with pen
+and paper.
+
+But Landon's talents were not wasted on literary composition when he was
+left alone. He produced a pair of pliers and dealt very drastically with
+the padlock on the bookcase, opened the glazed doors, and ran his
+fingers down the numbers engraved upon the morocco-bound volumes. He
+selected one, opened it, flipped the pages, and finally came to a halt,
+his finger-tip poised above a plan.
+
+He closed the book and went to the window. He opened it noiselessly.
+
+"Number 34 North Front. Elevation of gun platforms with angles to east
+and south," he enunciated very quietly but very distinctly into the
+night.
+
+A grayness stirred in the shadow below the window. There was a whispered
+reply.
+
+"Right!" answered Miller's voice laconically, and Landon poised the book
+in mid-air.
+
+"Can you see it?" he asked, still below his breath. There was an
+affirmative grunt from below.
+
+The book left Landon's hand and fell through the night. There was a
+faint shock as it reached the waiting grip in the darkness.
+
+Landon quietly and methodically shut the window and turned to the desk.
+He leaned, pen in hand, over the note-paper.
+
+There was the click of a latch-key. He swung round to confront his
+cousin.
+
+For a second the two eyed each other in silence. Then Landon rose slowly
+to his feet.
+
+"I came, forgetting that you were dining out," he said. "I came because
+I reasoned that by now ... you would be wanting ... to offer me an
+apology."
+
+Aylmer looked at the desk. Landon followed the glance.
+
+"I was going to explain--why?" he added, pointing at the unsullied
+note-paper.
+
+And then Alymer's gaze, which had been concentrated on his cousin's
+face, slipped past it and found, by chance, the bookcase.
+
+His brows met in a puzzled frown; he made a step forward; he bent to
+examine the fractured padlock. Then he straightened himself and gave an
+exclamation.
+
+Landon was ready. He drew a revolver from his pocket; he held it by the
+muzzle. And the butt came down with business-like vigor on Aylmer's
+temple. He seemed to crumple up rather than fall. He slid against the
+bookcase to the floor.
+
+The dawn was breaking before, confusedly, achingly, consciousness
+wavered back to him again--the same dawn which saw a Spanish steamer
+drop anchor in Tangier's roads and Landon, with a satisfied smile, swing
+down the ladder into the boat which was to take him ashore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+VILLA EULALIA
+
+
+Aylmer looked up as Despard came into the room. A kit bag lay on the
+floor half full and Aylmer's man was packing it. Despard raised his
+eyebrows in surprise.
+
+"Going?" he asked quickly. "Where?"
+
+"Tangier," said Aylmer. "To-night, by the Forwood boat."
+
+Despard gave a little whistle.
+
+"And the Commission?" he objected.
+
+"I've had very special luck there," explained Aylmer. "Sir Arthur went
+down with influenza yesterday morning. So the Commission, instead of
+meeting this week as proposed, adjourns till the end of November."
+
+He leaned down, gave a searching glance into the bag, and closed it.
+
+"That will do, Sillery," he said to the servant. "I'll call if I want
+you."
+
+As the man went out Despard dropped down upon the sofa. He sat and
+looked across at his companion with a glance which blended inquiry and
+concern.
+
+"I've heard only rumors, so far," he remarked.
+
+Aylmer made a little gesture towards the bookcase, which was still
+broken but empty.
+
+"I came back unexpectedly last night. I had been discussing a point with
+the general at dinner and ran across to find a book to prove my
+contention. I found Landon here, ransacking the bookcase. One volume is
+gone. He took me unawares and knocked me out. I didn't come to for
+several hours."
+
+Despard made an inarticulate exclamation of anger.
+
+"And he escaped, out of Gibraltar?"
+
+"By the _Miramar_, so the police declare. A Spanish tramp, going down
+the Moroquin coast and stopping first at Tangier."
+
+"He's gone to kill two birds with one stone," said Despard. "And you are
+pursuing?"
+
+"Naturally," said Aylmer, in a very matter-of-fact voice.
+
+"And your leave home--Scotland--cub hunting?"
+
+"That goes, of course. Possibly, if ten weeks is insufficient, my
+secretaryship goes. Perhaps, old chap, even my commission."
+
+Despard got up with a startled jerk.
+
+"What's that?" he cried fiercely. "What's that?"
+
+Aylmer's hand made a deprecative motion.
+
+"My duty's plain, isn't it?" he asked.
+
+"No!" retorted Despard. "If these old women of Commissioners have no
+more sense than to direct you to keep important books in a simple
+bookcase in your quarters--"
+
+"Oh, the book?" interrupted Aylmer, placidly. "Of course, there's the
+book."
+
+Despard halted, hesitated, and looked at his friend with curiosity.
+
+"You mean the contents of it? You can't help them getting known?"
+
+Aylmer nodded.
+
+"We must recognize the fact that they are known by whoever buys them,
+or whoever hired Landon to steal them."
+
+"Then why worry; why pursue, why start on this wild-goose chase?" He
+pointed to the great bruise on Aylmer's forehead. "It's outrageous, with
+that on you. It's probably dangerous."
+
+For a moment Aylmer was silent. He stood looking at Despard, and his
+eyes seemed to express a sort of speculative criticism.
+
+"Landon is my cousin," he said at last, as if he put the keystone to an
+argumentative arch.
+
+"What of it?"
+
+For the second time Aylmer hesitated before he spoke.
+
+"It seems to me," he said slowly, "that in this part of the world I am
+responsible for the good name which he is smirching. He has gone to
+Tangier--not only to save his skin. He has gone to commence a campaign
+of terrorization against the Van Arlens. Merely as an Aylmer I have to
+pit my hand against his, merely to clear our name and to do my duty. And
+there is more than that. Since Landon, for moral purposes, is dead, I
+consider that morally, and very possibly legally, I am the child's
+guardian. To keep my trust I have to safeguard the child from his
+father."
+
+Despard tapped his fingers doubtfully upon the mantelpiece.
+
+"And the Van Arlens?" he questioned.
+
+There were tones in his voice which made Aylmer pause over his
+portmanteau.
+
+"The Van Arlens? I am, of course, going to them direct."
+
+Despard hesitated.
+
+"You can't work with them," he said at last. "They won't accept your
+help."
+
+A flicker of emotion, first of pain and then of purpose, gleamed in
+Aylmer's eyes.
+
+"But they may need it," he answered. He looked at Despard searchingly.
+
+"And why not?" he went on. "What have they against me except my name?"
+
+"You don't know what it has come to mean to them, in eight years," said
+Despard, quietly.
+
+And then a queer little silence fell between them, an interval which
+seemed charged with the electricity of emotion. Despard looked at
+Aylmer. His friend was staring in his direction, but with a meditative,
+impersonal gaze which seemed to glance through--not at--him. And a smile
+grew faintly about his lips, though these, indeed, were pressed firmly
+together.
+
+He straightened his shoulders, he sighed.
+
+"Of course I start handicapped," he allowed. "But I can run a waiting
+race." And then he gave an involuntary start and a quick, curious glance
+at his companion. "We aren't competitors?" he asked suddenly.
+
+The crimson surged up under the tan on Despard's forehead. He laughed
+harshly.
+
+"The race was run and I was beaten, nine years ago," he said. "There
+will be no other entry, for me." He walked up to Aylmer and laid his
+hand upon his shoulder.
+
+"God knows, old chap, I wish you luck. But you carry weight, there's no
+denying that."
+
+Aylmer nodded again.
+
+"To carry weight one wants a stayer," he said. "And I can stay,
+Despard."
+
+The other nodded.
+
+"Yes," he said quietly. "You can stay. And as far as I know, the course
+is clear." His voice halted and stumbled queerly. "I ran straight, too,
+but I was fouled."
+
+And with a grip of Aylmer's hand he went out, to lay the balm of hope
+against the unhealed wound fate had dealt him, nine long years before.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As twenty-four hours later Aylmer climbed the steps from the water's
+edge to the pierhead of Tangier, a red fez was doffed from a
+close-cropped skull and out of a little crowd of hotel touts a Moor
+saluted with a welcoming smile.
+
+"A pleasant surprise, Sidi," he remarked affably. "There is no hunt
+abroad to-day."
+
+Aylmer shook his head gravely.
+
+"Not in thy meaning, Daoud," he answered. He moved closer to him. "A
+Spanish boat--the _Miramar_ came in at dawn?" he questioned.
+
+The Moor hesitated and then turned to shout to a companion. The man
+answered with a laconic affirmative.
+
+Daoud nodded.
+
+"Yes, Sidi. She came in. As you see, she has gone again."
+
+"Who landed from her?"
+
+Again Absalaam put queries to the assembled loafers. They answered
+obscenely but with directness.
+
+"A man came ashore with the captain and did not return with him," said
+the Moor. "Is this, then, an affair of importance?"
+
+"I will give fifty dollars to him who brings me face to face with that
+man," said Aylmer, quietly. "Let your fellows know this."
+
+Absalaam frowned ferociously and then laughed, a queer, high-pitched
+nasal laugh.
+
+"My fellows!" He swept his hand towards the pier loafers witheringly.
+"Does the Sidi think that I am of this noble company of--of dogs and
+eaters of dirt?" He laughed again, cheerfully this time. "After all, I
+have given the Sidi every reason to believe it. But it is not so. My
+work in Tangier sends me strange companions, but I am not of them. And
+there is no need that these should debauch themselves with your fifty
+dollars, Sidi. I will see to this thing!"
+
+Aylmer made a gesture of assent.
+
+"As you will, so that the matter is done with speed. I stay at the
+Bristol. For the moment I visit the Villa Eulalia."
+
+"You can spare yourself the heat and the mounting of the hill, Sidi.
+They of the villa set forth on an expedition to the lighthouse this
+morning."
+
+Aylmer came to a halt, irresolute.
+
+"This is not mere talk; you know it?"
+
+The Moor looked at him with sombre eyes which, however, barely hid a
+twinkle.
+
+"The lady, the little lord, and their attendants went; this I saw
+myself. Absalaam ibn Said, their dragoman, is my cousin. I spoke with
+him."
+
+"The old man?"
+
+Daoud's shrug conveyed the fact that he was sufficiently conversant with
+the customs of Nazrani to have neglected the movements of one who could
+surely not claim the attentions which were notoriously the due of his
+daughter.
+
+"I did not concern myself to notice the old man, Sidi. If your business
+is with him, doubtless it is God's will that he awaits you."
+
+He waved towards the town with a determined and energetic sweep of the
+hand.
+
+"I go, to earn your dollars, Sidi. One hour may suffice me; perchance I
+must waste three or even four. But I shall find him, have no doubt of
+the matter. Have I your leave to depart?"
+
+As they passed together under the shadow of the Marsa gate, Aylmer
+nodded and the next moment passed alone into the crowd. A side alley had
+swallowed Daoud as if by magic.
+
+Aylmer joined the main stream of traffic which breasted up past the
+Mosque and the little Sôk towards the Gate of the Great Market, and so,
+past the hovels of the desert vagrants which cluster round the walls, to
+the Marshan and the European quarter outside the town.
+
+A little apart from the cluster of Legations stood the Villa Eulalia,
+encircled with its tiny park. This, in its turn, was bounded by a high
+wall of plaster or dried mud. The entrance led under an archway by a
+porter's lodge.
+
+A Moor in a spotless bournous appeared and made a grave gesture of
+obeisance as the visitor stood in the shadow of the porch.
+
+Aylmer presented his card.
+
+The man inspected it and pulled a cord. Some way off, inside the house,
+came the clang of a bell. Another man emerged, took the card which the
+porter handed him, and disappeared. All this time Aylmer still stood
+outside the gate.
+
+Perhaps a certain irritation showed on his face, for the porter made a
+gesture of deprecation.
+
+"If the Sidi would sit--?" He submitted courteously, indicating his own
+chair. "I do not know the Sidi," he added, with another tiny shrug, "or
+else--" His voice died away. He let it be inferred that circumstances,
+not his own desire, stood between the visitor and instant welcome.
+
+Aylmer smiled.
+
+"Strangers do not have the entrée?" he asked, as he seated himself.
+
+The man bowed a grave affirmative.
+
+"These are my orders, Sidi," he answered. "But if the Sidi comes again
+he will find that I have a good memory. I do not forget a face."
+
+Aylmer nodded. "I hope to prove it, my friend," he said quietly, and
+then sat silent, reviewing his surroundings.
+
+There is probably no more beautifully situated dwelling in Africa than
+this wide one-storied house upon the knoll which dominates the Marshan
+with Tangier at its feet. Beyond the clustered houses of the town lies
+the blue of the bay. Beyond that again the gray vagueness of Gibraltar,
+Cadiz, and the cork woods of Spain. On clear days, high, white, and
+mystical looms, above all, the snow of the Sierra.
+
+Far to the east stands the ring of mountains which encircles Tetuan, and
+this, for many months of the year, has its own crown of white. Away to
+the west is the infinite emptiness of the Atlantic beyond Spartel, while
+southward, a barrier between the sea and the desert wastes, Sheshouan
+rears up its mighty crest. To whichever quarter the eye turns there is
+loveliness--loveliness both of color and of line. And the lucent
+clearness of the atmosphere emphasizes both. Sometimes the mist floats
+in and covers the seascape with a cloud of mystery, but it is seldom,
+save in the short time of the rains, that the landward view is anything
+but sun-swathed. And the sands which stretch between the river and the
+town walls seem to suck in his rays and render them back from their
+yellow richness when his face is obscured.
+
+What nature has done for the distant views artifice has graven upon the
+immediate surroundings. Pipes laid down to the little River of the Jews,
+which babbles below the knoll, bring up water to irrigate the lawns
+which surround the verandahs. Nowhere in Tangier is there such a carpet
+of living green. The creepers climb the verandah posts and trail
+unrestrained upon the roof. Great white, red, and yellow flowers swing
+from pole to pole as the sea breeze freshens; trailing tendrils of vine
+and clematis nod through the open windows and mingle with the cords of
+the string curtains. And the plash of water adds to the sense of leisure
+and repose. A little fountain plays ceaselessly from the summit of a
+massed pyramid of rocks and rambles down into the grass between
+clustered ferns. In masses of six and seven the date palms fling shade
+from trunk to trunk.
+
+Peace was the pervading element, Aylmer told himself, as he looked down
+the shady alleys and listened to the voice of the fountain, and yet
+peace, as facts went, was further from this abode than from the clangors
+of the market-place in the faction-riven town at their feet. This was no
+house of pleasure; it was a fortress, with the enemy ever at the gate.
+
+The precautions of his own entrance were sign enough, but other things
+bore witness. A score of gardeners was not necessary to tend the two
+acres of pleasaunce, elaborately planned and kept though they were.
+There was no entrance save the one; two others had been solidly walled
+in. Bars were on the windows; massive bolts upon the inner wooden gate
+beyond the iron one.
+
+Remembering to whom this debt of anxiety and watchfulness was due,
+Aylmer set his lips yet more grimly as he waited. Landon should pay to
+the uttermost, not only for the wrongs which he had heaped year by year
+upon his wife and her relations, but for the injury he had done to those
+of his own blood. Aylmer's eyes grew hard; his color rose angrily. He,
+John Aylmer, a reputable man, sat and waited admission to a house like a
+common mendicant, because Landon was a scoundrel. And beyond this, was
+there not more? Had he not had to endure a look of repulse, of loathing,
+from eyes--for the first time he confessed it, even to himself--which
+had become to him the very eyes of Fate. By God! Landon should pay
+bitterly for that!
+
+A step upon the gravel scattered his reflections. He looked up. Mr. Van
+Arlen was coming towards him, his head bent to that courteous, suavely
+interested inclination which is a relic of the old school of politeness.
+No man under sixty has had the time, or the inclination, to practise
+these old-time graces.
+
+Aylmer rose, and held out his hand. Mr. Van Arlen, with profuse
+gesticulations, insisted on personally bringing forward a couple of low
+deck chairs into the shadow of the palms. He waved his visitor to take a
+seat.
+
+Aylmer bowed, but preferred, he said, to stand. There was a significance
+in his tone which did not escape, was, indeed, not meant to escape, his
+companion. The old gentleman gave him a keen and somewhat disquieted
+look.
+
+"But I cannot sit if you do not," he protested. He gave the back of the
+chair a seductive little pat. "Let me persuade you," he pleaded
+anxiously.
+
+"Mr. Van Arlen," said Aylmer, slowly, "I am not received here as a
+friend. I prefer, therefore, to give my message standing, as a matter of
+business."
+
+The gray, furrowed face flushed.
+
+"My dear sir!" protested the old man. "My dear sir!"
+
+"You obviously evade my hand; you do not desire to ask me inside your
+house?" insisted Aylmer, quietly.
+
+The other raised a hand which shook deprecatingly. But Aylmer
+forestalled his attempt at speech.
+
+"You do these things, or rather you avoid doing them, without any
+personal cause of complaint against me, but because my name is what it
+is?"
+
+Van Arlen's hand fell to his side. The pained remonstrative look faded
+from his eyes. His lips, which had quivered, grew suddenly set and were
+firmly pressed together. He seemed to increase in stature.
+
+"Is not my reason good?" he cried sharply, as if some relentlessly
+passionate impulse mastered all restraint.
+
+"No," said Aylmer, quietly, "though I grant your provocation has been
+ample. Let me tell you this. If there are any men breathing whose
+loathing of your son-in-law can equal your own, it is those who are
+tainted with his name. In the name of my kinsmen, a name all reputable
+till Landon smirched it, I tender you their sympathy and regret."
+
+For a long instant the gray eyes beneath the grayer eyebrows searched
+Aylmer's face. Doubt, perplexity, and then finally a thrill of obvious
+relief passed across the waxen face. Aylmer's hand was taken; he was
+gently propelled towards a chair.
+
+"I have suffered much; can I be forgiven?" said the old man wearily.
+"Can you make my excuses valid to yourself?"
+
+"They were written, and the shame of our family with them, all too large
+in the press of two hemispheres," said Aylmer. "God knows I am not here
+to-day to bring anything more than such little reparation as is within
+my power."
+
+"Reparation?" Van Arlen's tone was more than surprised; it was startled.
+
+Aylmer nodded.
+
+"I came to give you information of Landon's whereabouts. He is here in
+Tangier, Mr. Van Arlen. I came to put you on your guard, and at the same
+time to offer you my assistance."
+
+Quickly, accurately, and in as few words as possible he outlined the
+events of the previous evening. Silently, but with growing anxiety, Mr.
+Van Arlen heard him to the end.
+
+He rose, trembling a little, as Aylmer concluded.
+
+"You will excuse me if I leave you to--to give some orders. The one
+outstanding fact in your story for me is that Landon is here, and that
+my daughter and the boy are on this expedition. They have their usual
+attendants, but--but--" He halted, stammering. "He--he may poise his all
+on one last attempt? He may get together a following which would
+overpower them?"
+
+Aylmer looked at him debatingly.
+
+"Yes," he allowed. "That is a possibility to be faced though I believe
+his resources are, or were, meagre. You will take more men and go and
+meet them?"
+
+The old man made a gesture of apology.
+
+"Yes," he said. "And, if you will pardon my curtness, at once."
+
+"The sooner the better," agreed Aylmer, quietly, "as I hope to be
+allowed to accompany you?"
+
+Van Arlen gave a little start, one that seemed to imply a doubt or a
+question. As if he replied to it, Aylmer gave a little nod.
+
+"You must accept me as an ally, my dear sir," he said. "You have seen
+that I have a pressing need to meet Landon. I should like to do so in
+your company."
+
+The other still hesitated.
+
+"Why?" he asked.
+
+"Because I would like to make the interview convincing--to you," said
+Aylmer. "Because I covet your friendship; because I want you and your
+family to revise their estimate of the name of Aylmer. Because," he
+paused and deliberated over his words for a moment, "because I want to
+be received by you at Villa Eulalia, inside."
+
+Again the gray face flushed; again the hand was raised in deprecation.
+And then the bell in the porch rang furiously, and continued to ring
+till the porter emerged frowning from his lodge.
+
+Aylmer heard the sound of blows and his own name repeated in fierce
+interrogation. He recognized the voice. It was Daoud who was shouting
+and endeavoring to gain entrance in the face of the porter's emphatic
+protests.
+
+As Aylmer advanced to the bars, the tumult ceased.
+
+"Sidi! Sidi!" cried the Moor. "Your man left by the Larache road three
+hours back. A company of ne'er-do-wells have taken a sudden impulse to
+visit Arzeila, or so they said. He joined himself to them, wearing
+native dress, and was accepted by them without comment. Surely there is
+something of strangeness and importance in this. I have run, I have
+sweated, to let you know!"
+
+Van Arlen gave an exclamation of alarm.
+
+"It is as I thought!" he cried. "The Arzeila road? That is a blind. They
+can make a cut across towards Spartel at any moment." He shouted towards
+one of the watching attendants; his voice seemed to gain new force as he
+issued his orders alertly. He faced Aylmer again. "It is a matter of
+speed," he exclaimed. "I must hasten--at the gallop."
+
+Aylmer gave him a protesting look.
+
+"Not I! We," he corrected.
+
+For a moment the other still hesitated. Then a smile broke into being in
+his sombrely weary eyes.
+
+"We, then," he agreed. "Even the gentleman who has sadly impaired the
+distinction of my porter, if you can guarantee him. We may need all the
+help we can get. Certainly we! God send we may be in time!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE FIRST TRICK IS LOST
+
+
+The cavalcade of horsemen swept along a level plain of beach and from
+there turned aside to gain the broom-covered slope which led towards the
+cliff top. The white column of the lighthouse, which had been their
+guide heretofore, disappeared behind the shoulder of the ascent. It was
+no more than a couple of miles away. The riders spurred their horses up
+the steep, Aylmer and Van Arlen leading. The edge of their anxieties
+grew blunter as they neared their goal. They might be in time to meet
+and safeguard those they sought before they left the shelter of Spartel.
+
+As they topped the rise and looked across the undulating stretch of
+green which lay before them, Daoud, riding behind Aylmer, gave a
+triumphant shout.
+
+"_La bas, alkumdullah!_" he cried fervently. "No harm, thanks to God.
+The lady is even now coming towards us with her party unharmed."
+
+Their eyes followed the direction of his finger. A great sigh of relief
+broke from Mr. Van Arlen's lips.
+
+A party came slowly towards them, a couple of furlongs distant. Seven or
+eight were men mounted on barbs, and armed, in spite of prohibitions,
+with Remington rifles swung across their laps. In front of them, a
+couple of mules paced doggedly on, carrying two white-clad figures. At
+their bridles were _djelab_-clothed youths, whose adjurations of their
+charges were audible even at that distance, so still was the evening
+air. Two or three dogs chased each other and supposititious partridges
+from tuft to tuft.
+
+Van Arlen and Aylmer saw that they were seen, but not recognized. The
+muleteers halted and cried loudly to the guard. The horsemen looked up,
+whirled up their rifles with their right hands, and spurred to the
+front.
+
+Daoud's bull voice stormed the cliff echoes.
+
+"Absalaam--Absalaam ibn Said! Son of foolishness! It is I, Daoud, with
+Sid' Aylmer and thine employer!"
+
+The rifle muzzles were lowered; the horsemen drew aside, and the two
+white-clad figures led again. A minute later Aylmer reined in his horse,
+and raised his helmet at Miss Van Arlen's side. Daoud, with a
+self-satisfied smile, was understood to explain that owing to his
+unparalleled management the expedition had resulted in an unprecedented
+success.
+
+The girl's eyes were raised questioningly, first to her father's face,
+and then doubtfully, almost, indeed, unwillingly, to Aylmer's. She bowed
+to him coolly, not ungraciously, but with no effect of welcome. He sat
+silent, watching as she listened to the explanation which the elder man
+gave in a rapid undertone.
+
+She made no comment till he finished, but at the first mention of
+Landon's name she unconsciously, as it seemed, edged her horse in a
+direction which took her away from Aylmer and closer to her small
+nephew, who sat on his gray donkey, staring at the newcomers with the
+frank astonishment of childhood. Aylmer noticed the movement. Was it
+instinctive maternal impulse which drew her to her charge when she heard
+that danger threatened him? Or was it antipathy for himself--the
+antipathy which long prejudice had given her for all who bore her
+brother-in-law's dishonored name? The shadow of doubt clouded his eyes,
+but his lips grew hard and resolute. Despard, if he had been there,
+would have recognized the symptoms. It was with that expression that
+Aylmer had led his guns into action on Colenso's already forgotten day
+of blood.
+
+But as Mr. Van Arlen's narrative continued, the girl's features relaxed.
+She turned and for the second time looked at Aylmer, doubtfully, indeed,
+but with the doubt of one who reconsiders, whose verdict is shaken by
+appeal.
+
+"Captain Aylmer has been at considerable trouble to warn us," she said.
+
+Aylmer shook his head.
+
+"No," he said quietly. "The warning I brought you was only part of my
+obvious duty. Surely you see that?"
+
+There was a queer note of feeling below the restraint in his voice. She
+recognized it and interest grew in her glance. She looked at him keenly.
+
+"After all, you have put yourself out to assist us in what is solely our
+own hazard," she protested. But there was something in her look which
+seemed to put the emphasis of her words awry. Was she hinting that he
+might have minded his own business, or was she pricking his sense of
+honor purposely, to judge him out of his own mouth.
+
+"I thought of your hazard, truly enough," he answered slowly. "I was
+thinking, perhaps more earnestly, of my own and my family's reputation.
+You forget that if you and your father have a heavy reckoning against my
+cousin, his own kinsmen, whom I represent, consider that theirs is no
+lighter."
+
+She considered him gravely.
+
+"No," she answered quietly. "No, I did not get that point of view. I did
+not even believe it a possible one, amongst Aylmers. There I have to ask
+your forgiveness."
+
+There was the hint of a smile lurking in her eyes, something that hinted
+that she exaggerated in saying this and knew it. But there was perfect
+seriousness in his reply.
+
+"That is taken for granted. And my position in this matter is taken for
+granted, too?"
+
+She looked at him questioningly again and then at her father. The latter
+smiled.
+
+"Captain Aylmer has his own grudge against this child's father. He
+offers us his co-operation."
+
+"And I ask for the friendly treatment of an ally," added Aylmer,
+quietly.
+
+Her look was still doubtful and, unconsciously, perhaps, she frowned.
+
+"Considering what we already owe you--" she began. He interrupted with a
+gesture.
+
+"You owe me nothing," he said. "If you reckon profit and loss in your
+dealings with Aylmers, you have a wide balance against you. All I want
+is your friendly tolerance, while I pay in instalments."
+
+She still seemed to ponder his proposal, to review it with the interest
+of a curiosity which has been imperfectly fed.
+
+"What is your ultimate goal, then?" she asked.
+
+He hesitated. A queer glint of passion shone in his eyes to sink into
+shadow again.
+
+"My goal is the trapping of Landon into an English gaol, for espionage
+and robbery. Or--" He shrugged his shoulders meaningly.
+
+"Or?"
+
+"Or his death," he said, in very distinct, level tones.
+
+"Ah!" The exclamation came from her almost unconsciously. Her face shone
+with a sudden alertness, her expression warmed, her eyes grew bright.
+
+"You would not hesitate--at that?" she demanded.
+
+Mr. Van Arlen made a little inarticulate murmur of protest; his hand was
+stretched towards her with appeal.
+
+She disregarded it. Her eyes were fixed piercingly on Aylmer's face.
+
+He met her glance with matter-of-factness.
+
+"I should not hesitate, if need arose," he said.
+
+She drew a long breath. Her features relaxed.
+
+"Thank you," she said gravely. "Now I know where we stand. And
+then--that is all?"
+
+This time it was his eyes which held hers with insistence, almost with
+menacing, she told herself.
+
+"No," he said quietly. "That is--not all. But that, for the present, is
+enough."
+
+For a moment her heart seemed to halt in its beat, the blood rushed to
+her face, the pulse of anger which leaped through her gave her a queer
+sense of choking. For she understood. Incredible, monstrous, as his
+purpose appeared in the light of her loathing of those who bore his
+name, she had not misread it. His words? They were possibly nebulous.
+But his eyes? No. No woman could misunderstand that look. Steadfast,
+patient, determined--the unswerving gaze of the pioneer who sees the
+unseen goal with the eye of faith, and sees it won.
+
+She wheeled her mule with a fierce drag of the rein; her spur found its
+flank and forced it forward. She felt morally stunned by this--this
+insolence; mere words could not meet it. For the moment she felt
+herself deprived of weapons by the unexpectedness of the attack.
+
+Her movement set the whole party in motion. Her father reined up to her
+side. She stole a half glance at his face. There was a queer, partly
+grim, partly puzzled expression on it, but she read, too, a glint of
+humor? Her exasperation rose. Her father, even? Had he gone over to the
+enemy; could she no longer reckon that his support would not crumble
+from resentment into laughter? Oh, this imperturbable Englishman should
+pay for this! If there was one shaft of gall left in her woman's armory,
+he should pay! The insolence of the man--the unparalleled insolence!
+
+Behind her she heard his voice, addressed to Absalaam in trivial
+inquiry. She felt an overwhelming desire to forestall the answer with
+indignant words of bitter loathing. His impassibility excited her--the
+serenity with which he passed back, as it were, to little things after
+launching such a bomb. She gave a shiver of passion, or, perhaps, fear
+had its place in her emotion. There was something relentless in his
+attitude, something uncompromising.
+
+Absalaam's answer was forestalled, but not by her. Little John Aylmer's
+voice rang out, shrill with the joy of discovery.
+
+"The brown man!" he cried rapturously. "The brown man!"
+
+The other John Aylmer looked up. A couple of men had come into sudden
+view round a corner of the track. A clump of Spanish broom had hidden
+their approach; they gave an exclamation of alarm as they met the
+glances of the riders not thirty yards away.
+
+One Aylmer recognized at once. He was the man of the pier, the would-be
+kidnapper whose purpose he himself had frustrated at the moment of
+success.
+
+The other man made a movement to cover his face with the hood of his
+_djelab_, but by some apparent unadroitness let it fall further back.
+And so revealed his identity.
+
+It was Landon--brought to a sudden halt by surprise.
+
+Through a pregnant instant of silence they confronted one another. Then
+Aylmer spurred forward with a shout.
+
+"Don't let them escape!" he roared. "A hundred dollars to the man who
+takes him!"
+
+The two fugitives turned and ran desperately down the path, seeking
+wildly for an opening in the surrounding jungle. Surprise and terror
+appeared to have dazed them, for they passed several avenues of escape
+heedlessly, made half-hearted attempts to turn, and still blundered on
+between the caging walls of green. Aylmer thundered behind them, drawing
+nearer with every stride. He leaned forward in the saddle; his arm
+reached out within a yard of Landon's flying draperies; he spurred
+fiercely into his horse's flanks.
+
+The two men leaped right and left into the green thicket as divers leap
+into the blue. And in the same instant something rose out of the
+earth--something thin, snake-like, starting suddenly into being, as it
+were, from the concealing smother of the dust into a rigid line knee
+high. Aylmer's horse stumbled, shot forward, and went down heavily. His
+rider was flung far beyond him, moved spasmodically once, and then lay
+still. The squadron of charging horsemen were trapped in their turn. Not
+one escaped. The goad of Aylmer's bribe had sent every man of them
+charging in the wake of his leadership. The taut-held rope accounted for
+them all, or for all save one. Absalaam, a consummate horseman, reined
+in on the brink of disaster, rearing his stallion high into the air.
+
+The road was an inferno of yelling men and blood-stained horses.
+
+The few Moors who were not stunned and incapacitated by their fall had
+to endure the perils of half a hundred wildly struggling hoofs. Scarcely
+six out of the score who had thundered so carelessly after their easy
+quarry fought a way for themselves out of the mêlée unharmed.
+
+And of those six there was not one who did not come to a sudden halt
+with uplifted fingers as they gained the open road. A revolver barrel
+was pointed at each man's breast.
+
+Ten or a dozen men had emerged from the thicket. They used no words;
+their fingers, significantly pressed upon the triggers, were eloquent
+enough. Only one spoke--Landon, who strolled slowly and panting a little
+into the circle which the menace of his underlings had formed.
+
+He halted opposite Claire Van Arlen.
+
+"Eh, sister-in-law!" he chuckled smilingly.
+
+Her face was white, but her hand, which gripped the reins, was steady.
+And her gaze burnt upon his face in loathing and contempt.
+
+"Rather neat?" said Landon, amiably. "I plume myself. My resources were
+limited, you see. I may congratulate myself upon having used them to the
+very best advantage."
+
+Still she was silent and still her eyes flung him their message of
+hate. He gave a pleasant little laugh. He made a significant jerk of the
+head in the direction of the chaos behind him.
+
+"And the virtuous cousin," he said. "What a fall is there, is there not?
+A hundred dollars! He actually appraised my poor liberty so high!"
+
+For a moment the expression in her glance changed as she turned it in
+the direction of the still struggling horses and their riders. He saw it
+and laughed again.
+
+"You divide your anxieties," he said. "Let me relieve you of one!"
+
+He stretched out his hand and laid it gently upon his son's shoulder.
+"Are you coming with your father--to ride the black horse upon the
+sands?" he asked.
+
+The child looked at him debatingly. His face lit up at the question, and
+then shadowed again as he turned his glance upon the motionless white
+figure on the mule beside him.
+
+"Auntie won't have it--and Selim," he deplored.
+
+"Won't they?" said Landon, good-humoredly. "I think they will."
+
+He stared up in the girl's face with insolent satisfaction.
+
+"In fact," he went on, "they've got to. Vulgarly, my boy, they may not
+like it, so they must lump it."
+
+He made a gesture of command.
+
+"Come, my son!" he said, motioning him to dismount.
+
+A tension broke. She lifted up her riding-whip and struck hard at him,
+struck with the concentrated strength of passion and despair. He leaped
+aside, but the end of the lash reached him and left a staring weal of
+red upon his cheek.
+
+He cursed aloud; he made as if he would spring at her.
+
+A warning cry came from behind him; half a dozen revolver shots rang out
+upon the evening air.
+
+Absalaam, sitting stark upon his stallion, covered by the revolvers
+which encircled him, had struck his spurs against his horse's flank. The
+fire in the animal's blood had responded in a great leap forward. Landon
+wheeled round to see, towering above him, man and horse, looming
+gigantic against the glare of the sunset. Instinctively, automatically,
+he threw up the muzzle of his own revolver, and fired full at the Moor's
+broad chest.
+
+The other bullets flew wide, but that one, so near was the human target,
+had no room to miss. Absalaam fell limply, heavily from the saddle, fell
+at his mistress's feet. The horse tore past a dozen restraining hands
+into liberty.
+
+There was shouting, confusion, the rattle of other shots. And then the
+voice of the brown _djelabed_ man thundered out high above the uproar.
+
+"In God's name, Sidi, have haste. Four of them have fled into the
+thicket! God alone knows what help they may bring their fellows and how
+soon!"
+
+And Landon, who had been flung to his knees in the dust, rose swiftly,
+without another word snatched his son from the saddle, and led the way
+into the jungle.
+
+In five short minutes he had come, conquered, and gone. He had won every
+trick, every trick! Claire passed her hand across her brow as she stared
+at the huddle of wounded and--she shuddered in agony as the thought
+thrilled--perchance the dead! What lay within that ring of broken
+bodies--what? With white lips and fear-brimmed eyes she slipped from her
+saddle to see.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+AYLMER IS EXPLICIT
+
+
+It seemed to Aylmer that the world into which he woke was one of
+stillness, of neutral tints, of intrinsic peace. There was a hint of
+sunshine diluted by the green hangings in front of the windows, but no
+more than a hint. There was a faint echo of the sound of falling water
+floating in with the light, but merely an echo. There was, in fact, but
+the slightest suggestion of life in his surroundings, and that came from
+the silently regular rise and fall of the bosom of the sleeping man who
+sat at his bedside. Aylmer blinked and stared in mild surprise, for the
+man was Daoud.
+
+He moved restlessly under the sheets. Where was he? Into what unsought
+refuge had Fate flung him now?
+
+His movement, slight as it was, aroused the Moor. With a little
+self-reproachful exclamation he stood up and leaned over the bed.
+
+"Oh, Sidi!" he cried, "it rejoices my heart to read the light of
+understanding in your eyes."
+
+Aylmer blinked again bewilderedly.
+
+"Where am I and what do you here?" he asked.
+
+"You are in Villa Eulalia, Sidi, and where should I be but in attendance
+on my lord?"
+
+Astonishment lifted Aylmer into a weak attempt to rise. The Moor put a
+hand upon his shoulder and firmly pressed him back.
+
+"Nay, Sidi," he said respectfully. "The German doctor lord expressly
+forbade that you should raise your head from the pillow till he had seen
+you again."
+
+Aylmer began to feel as if his wits as well as his body had been
+bludgeoned. Circumstances seemed to have leaped freakishly beyond his
+recollection.
+
+"I was brought here when?" he asked.
+
+"Yesterday, Sidi. Your brain was sorely smitten inside your skull, or so
+I understood the man of medicines. For fifteen hours you have lain as
+one feigning death, though breathing. Now you have come into the right
+of your senses again. This the medicine man also prophesied."
+
+The puzzled frown stayed on Aylmer's brow.
+
+"And you?" he demanded. "And you?"
+
+The Moor answered with a demure shrug of the shoulder.
+
+"Your wounded brain has perchance forgotten, Sidi, that I entered your
+benign service on the morning of the day which saw you defeated by the
+treachery of that one whom we sought, you and I. My service has been
+constant ever since."
+
+He met his victim's increasing frown with complacent assurance as he
+spoke. Surely everything, he seemed to imply, was in order. And as the
+situation became clear to Aylmer's growing intelligence, the frown
+became an exasperated smile.
+
+"You have used my helplessness to impose yourself into this house as my
+body-servant," said Aylmer. "Oh, Daoud, you are of a deceitfulness
+beyond my unpractised powers of speech."
+
+"Speech beyond the mere limits of necessity was strongly discountenanced
+by the German doctor lord," said Daoud, hastily. "Has the Sidi any
+further desires?"
+
+"None, save for information. Speak thou! Give me the plain tale of all
+happenings since I fell into that trap upon the road. The man we
+sought--did he escape?"
+
+The Moor nodded.
+
+"He escaped victoriously, with all his following. He took also the
+child, the Sidi Jan, who, so they tell me, is the son of his house. They
+took themselves unmolested into the tangle of the broom, leaving of our
+company one dead--from the kick of a horse, Sidi--half a dozen
+senseless, yourself among them, Absalaam grievously wounded in the
+bosom, though like to recover, and all, save four or five, with bruises,
+broken limbs, or, at least, frayed and bleeding skin. So they fled, but
+Ali, of the Walad Said, who had been flung away from the hardness of the
+open track into the heart of the thicket, had taken no harm and followed
+them to the caves."
+
+Aylmer gave a start.
+
+"The caves?" he muttered weakly. "The caves?"
+
+"The Sidi knows them well. The caves of Hercules beyond Spartel, where
+the millstone carvers ply their toil and where the Sidi and other
+Nazrani ride forth to eat and drink upon occasion when they entertain
+their friends."
+
+Aylmer nodded. The caves of Hercules are the resort of many a picnic
+party from Tangier.
+
+"Leaving them there, he hastened back with news. The Sidi Van Arlen,
+lord of this house, was by then recovered of the stunning which he, too,
+had suffered, and weak though he was immediately led forth another
+company to search the caves. And this they did unsuccessfully, Sidi,
+learning from one of the millstone workers, who had doubted of the
+integrity of these sons of dirt before they saw him, and who had
+therefore hidden himself and watched them unseen, that after a rest of
+three or four hours the men, taking with them the child, had passed down
+to the shore, had there awaited and been taken off by a boat which
+delivered them, so he conceived, to a lateen which he could descry in
+the moonlight about three furlongs out. And in that ship they have gone
+we know not whither."
+
+Aylmer's fingers clenched and unclenched upon the coverlet. How
+thoroughly, how absolutely, they had been bested! But the account was
+rolling up. Ultimate defeat? His mind never even considered it. He
+merely put another item in the mental ledger from which Landon's account
+would one day be presented, and paid, in full.
+
+"Let not the Sidi imagine that we have sat inactive while these sons of
+unchaste mothers triumph. I myself snatched a hasty hour from your
+bedside to enter the town and set certain ones agog for news. The Sidi
+Van Arlen hath telegraphed to Spain; every Guardia Civile along the
+coast has knowledge of how a reward of a thousand pesetas may be gained.
+By favor of the captain of the French warship all other ships of the
+French marine within three hundred miles have been warned to challenge
+unvouched-for boats. How this is done I am unable to say, but so it is.
+Watch upon the seas is therefore being kept. Now steam is being raised
+upon the white yacht in the bay, that when news comes it may be followed
+without delay. Lastly, a special mission has been sent by favor of the
+Bashaw from town to town along the coast as far as Dar-el-Baida. Thus
+have we set a wide net. Yet it has holes in it, Sidi, and holes are what
+these jackals are ever quick to seek."
+
+With a sudden movement, Aylmer sat up. A frown and a gesture of command
+warded back Daoud's outstretched hand.
+
+"Art thou my servant?" he cried, and the Moor spread out his palms in
+alert assent.
+
+"Of a surety, Sidi, but the dispenser of medicines--"
+
+"What have I to do with medicines--I, a strong man with no more than a
+bruised skull? Give me my clothes!"
+
+"But, Sidi--"
+
+"My clothes, or return instantly to the gutter from which my favor
+yesterday lifted you!"
+
+The Moor gave a fatalistic shrug.
+
+"If Allah has written it that you are to die by the weapon of thine own
+obstinacy, oh, Sidi, He has written it. This is thy shirt."
+
+With an accustomedness which spoke of previous practice, he presided
+over his master's toilet. He fetched water, honed a razor, shaved Aylmer
+with deftness and despatch, produced trousers from a press, handed coat
+and waistcoat brushed and folded to the last pinnacle of neatness. It
+was as he laced the boots that he looked up inquiringly and put a
+question which had been obviously hanging upon his lips since the moment
+of his master's rising.
+
+"And what, oh, Sidi, are your intentions now?"
+
+"First, to see my host. Afterwards," he made a vague gesture,
+"afterwards, my friend, I shall act as is directed by your perpetual
+gossip--Fate!"
+
+"May Allah direct our councils!" aspired Daoud, piously. "Lean upon me,
+Sidi! There is no need to overtax thy returning strength!"
+
+But Aylmer leaned upon nothing. Slowly, but walking erect, he paced
+across the wide entrance hall, and then halted, indeterminate.
+
+The hangings across a door opposite him were drawn aside. Claire Van
+Arlen stood confronting him, her lips parted in amazement.
+
+"You!" she protested breathlessly. "You!"
+
+He answered with a little bow.
+
+"Myself," he said quietly. "I must present my excuses for an ...
+intrusion which it was not within my power to prevent."
+
+She held up her hand in protest.
+
+"When you were wounded in our service!" she cried. "When you were doing
+your best for us!"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"No," he said. "I am working, I shall go on working, for myself. I
+should like that to be clear."
+
+She half turned away with a little startled motion and the ghost of a
+frown. Words trembled on her lips and were thrust back. She understood,
+and would have sought, at any other time, this opportunity to make
+things clear indeed, but ... the man was wounded ... serving her and
+hers. No, for the moment the opportunity must go by.
+
+She held up the cord hangings and pointed into the room behind her.
+
+"At any rate you must not stand, and I am extremely culpable to permit
+your mutiny against your doctor's orders. Why have you got up?"
+
+He strode slowly after her into the shadowed room. He sat down upon the
+wicker chair which she indicated. His eyes sought hers, keenly and very
+directly.
+
+"You have no news?" he asked. "Nothing out of Spain, or from the coast?"
+
+Her eyes clouded.
+
+"None, or next to none. The signal station at Spartel saw a lateen
+working her sweeps in the distance at dawn. There was a glassy calm
+inshore, but occasional and uncertain breezes out of the shelter of the
+land. She was making as if for Cadiz, but half an hour later, just as
+the haze covered her, a strong wind rose from the northwest and it is
+doubtful if she could have beaten up against it. In which case she
+probably stood down the coast."
+
+Her voice was apathetic and a little weary. Her glance avoided his.
+
+He gave a little nod as she finished.
+
+"Yes," he said. "He has taken the first trick--Landon. And I have been
+no help to you but a hindrance. It was I who helped him last night--I,
+with my impulsiveness. There you have a right ... to suspect me."
+
+She made a quick, restless movement.
+
+"Suspect you!" she cried. "You!"
+
+"Yes," he said slowly. "That day in the town, and on the pier, at the
+Tent Club meeting, even--was not that in your mind?"
+
+His voice was not reproachful, merely inquiring.
+
+She flushed.
+
+"The first time I suspected every one," she answered. "The second time I
+discovered, suddenly and unexpectedly, your name."
+
+He nodded.
+
+"And now?" he questioned. "And now?"
+
+"Now?" she repeated. "Have you not given me my proofs?"
+
+"Have I?" His voice was eager. "I can reckon that barrier down then? The
+taint of the name is cleared away? I start with no handicap of
+prejudice?"
+
+Again the form of words half bewildered, half exasperated her. Start?
+Start whither, in what race, to what goal? And were there barriers to be
+won, too? Between him and--what?
+
+Her instinct gave her the answer as it had done the day before. But she
+shrank from the acknowledgment, even to herself. The thought was too
+monstrous. An Aylmer and--and that! The blood rushed to her forehead on
+the tide of her resentment. And then as suddenly ebbed. After all, was
+it not the name alone which sent that surging throb of repulsion through
+her veins? Supposing she had met this man, in ignorance. She started
+again. Had she not so met him, at first? She cudgelled her brains in
+reflection. How did she regard him that morning at the Tent Club, before
+she knew? Had he not seemed a personable, even a gallant and courageous
+soldier, worthy of a woman's regard? She looked at him suddenly,
+curiously, with a sort of speculation in her eyes.
+
+And he met the glance quietly, watchfully, and--so she told herself with
+a recurrent thrill of exasperation--relentlessly as well. It was as if
+he was forcing her to be won from prejudice to impartiality. As if he
+willed her into just thinking against herself. A tiny spasm of fear
+pulsed through her. In a clash of purpose who would win, she or this
+man?
+
+She made him a gesture which had about it the sense of appeal.
+
+"One cannot dismiss prejudices; one can fight them," she faltered.
+
+"Ah!"
+
+He sighed, not with weariness, but with a sort of patience, with
+restraint. "I think perhaps women do not accept mere justice as a plea
+so easily as men," he debated. "So I must not presume on that footing. I
+have still to win my way from ... dislike?"
+
+"No!" she cried sharply. "No! I can be just to what you have done. What
+you are--that I have yet to learn, have I not?"
+
+He smiled a little bitterly.
+
+"I am an Aylmer. That is the lesson you have got by heart. I ask you to
+begin by unlearning."
+
+She caught her breath a little quickly. Then she gave a decided little
+nod.
+
+"Very well," she answered. "I--I will forget everything but the fact
+that you saved the boy once and that you--"
+
+"Will do it again," said Aylmer. "That is a bargain?"
+
+Again she hesitated over the form of words. A bargain? What was her side
+of the contract. If he fulfilled the purpose of which he spoke so
+confidently, what did it mean, from her point of view? She avoided the
+issue.
+
+"You will find the child, you will bring him back?" she wondered.
+
+"Of course!" He sat very erect in his chair. He smiled confidently. "In
+a fight between a rogue and honest men, the honest men win ultimately,
+and always. The green bay tree of the unrighteous grows with luxuriance
+but withers in time inevitably. I shall follow him till I win."
+
+"And your career?" she asked incredulously. "Your profession?"
+
+He smiled.
+
+"That will be my career--to defeat Landon. Is it a reputable one for a
+gentleman?"
+
+She made a motion of protest.
+
+"But--but that is self-sacrifice, one which we couldn't accept. Why
+should you do this for us?"
+
+He shook his head again.
+
+"No," he said. "I must repeat it, I work for myself. I seek my own
+interest, and that, in the first place, is to make you just. I see but
+the one way to do it. I have to convince you that I am in earnest, have
+I not?"
+
+Again that baffling allusion. In earnest in what? In defeating Landon,
+in attempting the rescue of the child? Surely he had proved that
+already. And yet how could she counter a point which she could not help
+allowing she now understood; how could she do it without the loss of
+dignity implied in an explanation? But it was grotesque. He had known
+her a bare week. He had met her on four occasions.
+
+She looked up, met his eyes, and dropped her own. A tiny sense of panic
+overtook her. He sat there, indomitable. Suppose--suppose he ultimately
+made his purpose good. She made herself look at him again. He had, at
+any rate, good looks to recommend him. And courage and the respect of
+his fellows. But--again a wave of exasperation flowed over her mind. Oh,
+it was outrageous, unthinkable. An Aylmer--another Aylmer. Unconsciously
+her lips curved in a half sarcastic smile. Why, the very newspapers of
+the world would pile headline upon headline over such a fiasco. She
+stiffened with resentment, with a sense of being played with. Her voice
+was chill with a note of dignity outraged.
+
+"I think the fact of your proposing to devote time and strength to the
+pursuit of--of your cousin is a very convincing one, Captain Aylmer,"
+she answered. "The point is that we have no right to accept so much from
+you."
+
+He smiled joyously.
+
+"I shall always want to be giving, to you. Always, always. Please
+understand that. My service is to you, and so to myself. Try to think of
+me in that light, patiently."
+
+And then a sort of desperation seized her. She probed her mind for a
+form of words which should give him no further loophole to persist in
+his veiled menaces, for she could call them no less, one that should
+seize a meaning out of his allusions and crush it with a directness
+which could not be misunderstood. Her eyes grew hard; she rose to her
+feet.
+
+A step sounded in the hall, and the hangings were pushed aside. Her
+father stood before them.
+
+He looked at Aylmer with amazed reproach. His face, already haggard with
+anxiety, took on new lines of concern.
+
+"My dear sir!" he protested. "My dear sir!"
+
+And Aylmer could not resist a smile. It was the form of protest which he
+had used at their former meeting to veil--what? Antipathy? And now? The
+words were full of genuine concern. He read no longer dislike in Mr. Van
+Arlen's glance. The elder man's eyes had softened as they reached his.
+
+He warded off further reproaches with a question.
+
+"The news?" he cried eagerly. "The news is what?"
+
+"Good, in so far that we can gauge the direction of their flight. They
+have been seen passing Arzeila; the morning's gale has prevented their
+attempt to reach any port of Spain."
+
+"And so--?"
+
+"And so we start in pursuit with my yacht, within the hour."
+
+Aylmer stood up.
+
+"We?" he repeated. "We being--?"
+
+Van Arlen looked mildly astonished.
+
+"My daughter and I."
+
+Aylmer held out his hand with a pleading gesture.
+
+"You can't afford to despise my help," he said. "You must take me, too."
+
+Van Arlen looked at Aylmer and then, questioningly, towards his
+daughter. She met his glance. Here at last was the opportunity to make
+things plain with a vengeance. They had but politely to decline.
+
+Aylmer's voice forestalled her.
+
+"To be impartial, that was your promise," he said. "We had not got far,
+but at least as far as that."
+
+In spite of herself she turned and faced him. He met her glance
+steadily, confidently, expectant.
+
+She gave a queer, half-exasperated little laugh.
+
+"I think Captain Aylmer is a man who is easily refused nothing," she
+said, and passed quietly out of the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+BY FAVOR OF THE FOG
+
+
+"I do not like this!" piped a small and dejected voice. "I came to ride
+a black horse, not to be bumped in this vessel forgotten of God!"
+
+In English these words would have sounded strangely from the lips of a
+child of six, but little John Aylmer was fluent in the Arab jargon of
+his grandfather's native household.
+
+He was sitting disconsolate in the cockpit of the lateen _Esmeralda_.
+His company was Señor Emilio Albaceda, mariner and practical exponent of
+the tenets of an uncompromising Free Trade. From the uncovered hatch
+came the sound of wind whistling in the cordage and the swish and thud
+of the combers breaking past. Upon one of the narrow bunks which flanked
+the tiny cabin lay Landon, fast asleep. A guttering and extremely
+odoriferous lamp of vegetable oil was the sole illuminant. The prospects
+of comfort and entertainment in such surroundings were not those likely
+to appeal to a child accustomed to luxury and constant attention.
+
+"_Pazienza!_" grunted the skipper, good-humoredly. "Black horses are not
+found upon the sea, though a friend of mine who prefers the running of
+contraband to the priesthood for which his parents destined him, read me
+once verses from a journal--true poetry in praise of a boot polish the
+name of which does not stay by me--where the waves of the Atlantic were
+likened unto stallions white-maned. I confess I thought the notion
+original."
+
+The child stared at him meditatively.
+
+"If horses are not to be found upon the sea and we seek horses, why do
+not we forsake the sea for the land?" There was a note of anticipation
+in the query which seemed to find this argument conclusive.
+
+The smuggler grinned.
+
+"Excellently argued, son of much intelligence," he answered. "Land is
+what we shall seek when this gale breathed from Jehannum permits us to
+do so in safety. For the moment we drive before it, there being no
+harbors on this coast within a thousand miles."
+
+The child moved restlessly.
+
+"Where then can we land?" he demanded.
+
+"Where God and His Mother and the Holy Saints permit," said Señor
+Albaceda, suddenly reverting to _lingua franca_ to clothe a piety of
+sentiment which the Moslem religion ignores. The One Allah's plans,
+being laid from the foundation of the world, are not susceptible to the
+influences of human appeal.
+
+Little John made a grimace of hearty discontent and looked doubtfully at
+the sleeping form of his father. But for the moment distraction came
+from another quarter.
+
+Two brown legs appeared in the opening of the hatch. As their owner
+lowered himself into the cabin, he disclosed the features of the man of
+the brown _djelab_--he who on Tangier pier had been sponsor for those
+fiery but phantom steeds which Fate had not allowed to materialize. The
+child received him with a shrill little shout of welcome.
+
+"Muhammed!" he cried gladly. "Muhammed!"
+
+The Moor placed his lean finger upon the yellow curls in a light caress,
+but his look was towards the berth where Landon could be seen stirring,
+aroused by his son's acclamation.
+
+He slipped into a sitting posture in front of the tiny table and leaned
+upon it, his chin supported by his elbows, a look of expectancy tinged
+by humor in his eye.
+
+"Well, my friends," he queried amiably, "our news is, what?"
+
+The Moor gave a pessimistic shrug of the shoulder.
+
+"Bad, Sidi," he said tersely. "We continue to drive westwards as
+before."
+
+Landon shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"We shall not see Cadiz to-morrow nor the day after," he said. "Well,
+the future is spacious. We have infinite leisure before us in which to
+beat back."
+
+The captain grunted.
+
+"Leisure we have in abundance, but not food nor yet water. We must put
+in somewhere before we attempt a feat which will take, at the best,
+three days and, if Chance so decides, perhaps a fortnight."
+
+Landon's face was clouded with a sudden scowl.
+
+"Food and water! Why have you not these in sufficiency? Your terms are
+extortionate enough as it is without the makeweight of starvation!"
+
+"My terms," said Señor Albaceda, gruffly, "were all too cheap; what I
+learned in Tangier after I had come to an agreement with you was proof
+to me of that. But I am a man of honor; I keep bargains duly made. I
+contracted to set you ashore in Cadiz harbor--with a favorable wind a
+one night's work. I did not contract to feed three extra mouths through
+a voyage of weeks. When the wind moderates, I make for the nearest
+market, and you will buy your own provisions for our return. That is
+well understood."
+
+"You mean to land on the African coast, not the European?" cried Landon.
+
+"Where else?" said the skipper, drily. "Do you expect me to carry you on
+to the Azores?"
+
+Landon looked questioningly at Muhammed. The Moor made a gesture of
+resignation.
+
+"_Mektub_, it is written!" he answered fatalistically. "Azemmour,
+perchance, or Mazagan."
+
+"And opposite each we shall find a French cruiser anchored," growled
+Landon, "with launches fussing about, and every craft which enters under
+suspicion of smuggling guns for the Chawia. And ten to one warning about
+us from Tangier sent down the coast."
+
+"That would be a matter of time," said the Moor. "We have driven faster
+than horsemen could ride!"
+
+"Horsemen!" Landon smote the table in his irritation. "These ships of
+war have apparatus by which they can communicate as if a cable linked
+them. If my father-in-law gets the right side of the commandant of the
+Tangier guardship--" He broke off with another shrug. "Well, to each day
+its appointed sorrow. The gale has not blown itself out yet."
+
+"The event is with Allah!" said the Moor, gravely. He thrust his head up
+through the hatch and shouted to the steersman. A moment later he
+dropped back into the shelter of the cabin again.
+
+"Your man Ibrahim is of opinion that the wind shows signs of abating. We
+passed Larache two hours back. The scud hides the shore, but he judges
+that we are not far from Sallee. If the surf permits, we may get
+anchorage and make a landing at Azemmour. If not, we must dare
+Casablanca or continue to Mazagan."
+
+Señor Albaceda grunted pessimistically and climbed lumberingly on deck.
+Landon threw himself back on the berth again. The Moor looked down at
+the child with a whimsical expression of pity which changed to a
+benignant smile as the object of it raised his eyes to his.
+
+"The Sidi Jan has not heard the marvellous tale of the Bashaw of Tripoli
+and the Afreets of El Mut?" he submitted. "If it is the Sidi's will, his
+servant will now take the opportunity of relating it to him?"
+
+Little John Aylmer answered with an ecstatic chuckle of delight, and
+wriggled hurriedly into the encirclement of his friend's arm. Thus
+supported, he was able to defy the unsettling influence of the waves and
+give the whole of his attention to the taxing of the Moor's memory or,
+when this occasionally failed, his very competent imagination. The hours
+of the afternoon were passed agreeably; the difficulties of making a
+meal without the ordinary appliances of civilization provided a certain
+amount of diversion when night fell, and afterwards sleep was paramount.
+When the child woke he found the boat running slowly upon an even keel,
+and scrambling on deck was met by the view of a glassy swell surrounding
+her, but only visible to the extent of the few square yards which were
+enclosed in a veil of fog.
+
+The skipper was at the wheel, and Ibrahim, the deck hand, and Muhammed
+were seated side by side in the bows. They did not peer into the fog--a
+hopeless task. They sat in a listening attitude, exchanging a brief word
+now and again.
+
+"It is certainly the drumming of a ship's screw," decided the sailor,
+after a moment's silence. "It is going at half speed, behind us."
+
+"Let us hope that Allah has not predestined us to be cut in twain," said
+his companion. "But from port, and very regularly, I hear the beat of
+breakers. The swell is rolling against a cliff."
+
+"A shore, not a cliff," corrected the other. "If my dead reckoning is
+right within a score of miles, we are opposite a beach of sand."
+
+Muhammed shook his head.
+
+"Nay, listen to that thud. The crest of the comber meets something flat.
+It does not roll, in slowly dying foam, upon a strand."
+
+Ibrahim shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"In a fog we be all blind men," he said pessimistically. "Let us wait
+for the fulfilment of Allah's plan."
+
+They glanced questioningly upwards. As is common in these west coast
+fogs, the blanket of vapor was thin. Now and again a faint hint of blue
+above their heads seemed to presage a lifting of the mist; occasionally,
+indeed, the sun was to be seen vaguely as a round yellow ball of light,
+streaked by the slowly drifting scud. But the gray walls on each side of
+them remained unbroken. At the same time the beat of the breakers was
+perceptibly near.
+
+Señor Albaceda lifted his head from the hatch and invited the
+maledictions of innumerable Holy Men upon the weather. He was understood
+to confess that he did not undertake to gauge their position within a
+hundred miles.
+
+"If Allah's mercy would send us an offshore wind!" aspired the pious
+Ibrahim, and lo! with the word came its sudden fulfilment. The fog was
+rent by a gust, to disclose, not a couple of cable lengths distant, what
+appeared to be a smooth and painted crag of gray.
+
+The two Moors addressed fervent appeals to the One God. The Spaniard,
+impartially apostrophizing the tormented of Purgatory and the
+celestially blessed to hasten to his assistance, delivered himself of
+the opinion that Fate had closed her iron hand upon them. Where else
+could they be than within a mile of the sea bastions of Casablanca?
+
+That, did they observe, was a cruiser--nay, possibly a battleship by
+whose watch they had been observed without a shadow of a doubt. As the
+fog closed in again, he descended to the cabin where he could be heard
+loudly bewailing the situation to his passenger, whom he appeared to
+hold responsible for this and for a fairly extensive list of other
+inconveniences. The captain of the lateen _Esmeralda_ had obviously been
+warding off the chill influences of the fog by a liberal dose of
+_aguardiente_.
+
+Landon lifted himself quickly to the deck. The mist was perceptibly
+lighter by now. A beam of sunlight pierced it from above and lit the
+_Esmeralda's_ deck. The gray wall was still unbroken landward, but
+seaward it thinned, lifted, rolled this way and that, and finally
+disclosed a shining plain of blue. The central object in this, a couple
+of miles away, was a white, gleaming yacht.
+
+Landon swore.
+
+"_The Morning Star_--Van Arlen's boat, by God!" he cried. He made the
+helmsman a furious gesture. "Into the fog again!" he shouted. "Stick her
+nose into it, get out of this!"
+
+"To beat out her timbers upon the harbor reef, or be swamped beneath the
+bows of a warship!" screamed the skipper from the hatch. "Never! Keep
+her in the light, son of accursed mothers! Do passengers who have been
+born of leprous parents give orders aboard this vessel, or I, Concepcion
+Albaceda, to whom the law rightly adjudges powers of life and death?"
+
+He came lurching heavily aft, waving a case bottle by the neck to give
+emphasis to his commands. The bewildered Ibrahim stared at him owlishly.
+
+The next moment he gave a cry of alarm. Landon had tripped the captain's
+unsteady feet, and, aided by Muhammed, had taken him forward and flung
+him into the cockpit. They closed the hatch, secured it, and came aft
+again. Imperiously Landon repeated his order.
+
+The unfortunate sailor still hesitated. His compatriot took him firmly
+by the nape of the neck.
+
+"Into the fog, child of indescribable unfaithfulness," he commanded, "or
+become immediately bait for sharks! Choose!"
+
+The bewildered Ibrahim brought round the tiller with a jerk. Like a
+rabbit seeking its burrow, the lateen dived fogwards.
+
+As the gray wall surged up to them again, they turned and stared
+seaward. Landon cursed loudly. The yacht was turning, too, straight
+towards them. At a word from his master, Muhammed got out the great
+sweeps and invited Ibrahim imperiously to join him in working them.
+Landon took the helm.
+
+Two minutes later there was a crashing sound forward and the bowsprit
+splintered with a shock which made the little vessel shiver throughout
+its length. A muffled wail of wrath and despair followed from the depths
+of the cockpit.
+
+The wall of gray was towering above them. Over the bulwarks of the R.
+F. Cruiser _Diomède_ a lieutenant looked down and anathematized them
+with a versatility only acquired by a true son of the sea. Landon bowed,
+smiled, and in perfect French, asked the liberty of being permitted to
+come aboard.
+
+The lieutenant, surprised beyond measure to hear the accents of the
+Faubourg from the decks of such an unpromising craft, hastened to forget
+the collision between the _Esmeralda's_ bowsprit and the _Diomède's_
+paint, and directed his petitioner to find the companion ladder. A
+minute's groping in the fog, and Landon stood upon the cruiser's deck.
+
+He bowed elaborately. The lieutenant returned the bow and motioned him
+towards the quarter-deck. The captain came forward to receive him,
+smiling amiably.
+
+"I must be perfectly frank with you, Monsieur le Commandant," said
+Landon, returning the smile. "I come to beg assistance. My yacht is in
+harbor here, as you are possibly aware. No? The fog has hidden us; we
+came in last night. With my little son, I went ashore early this morning
+to leave a card on General d'Amade, to whom I have an introduction. I
+missed my own boat at the landing-place and was foolish enough to be
+persuaded to embark with these imbeciles below, of whom one is drunk and
+the other witless. I have already had an hour of monotonous adventure in
+the gloom; I am a little tired of being very reasonably cursed by master
+mariners whose vessels we have been ambitious enough to ram. It struck
+me that perchance you would be sending a boat ashore within the course
+of an hour or so, and might permit me to wait on deck and be a passenger
+in it. If so, my gratitude would be beyond words. It is not only for
+myself. My little son is delicate; I do not wish to expose him longer
+than is necessary to the chill of these vile vapors."
+
+Commandant Rattier smiled again, expressed his pleasure in being able to
+offer assistance to any Englishman--he himself was united to that nation
+by ties of blood. He would order away his launch immediately. In the
+meantime _une limonade Ecossaise_ would combat the effect of chill and
+mist. Monsieur would descend to the cabin, would accept some small
+refreshment?
+
+Monsieur overflowed with thanks. He would dismiss the villains who had
+led him into such a coil, and then hold himself at M. le Commandant's
+service.
+
+He leaned over and gave his orders. Muhammed turned to Ibrahim.
+
+"Remove yourself and your master, oh, son of dirt, from these
+surroundings with the utmost speed, or I have the promise of the captain
+of this warship that he will send you in chains ashore to answer for
+your crime in wilfully colliding with his vessel. Your bowsprit? What
+have I to do with the results of your own vile seamanship? Have haste or
+Allah alone knows what will betide from the mouth of one of these guns."
+
+He gathered the child up into his arms and stalked with dignity up the
+companion.
+
+Ten minutes later a launch fussed away from the side of the _Diomède_.
+The commandant waved his handkerchief gaily in farewell to his small
+guest, who, from the encirclement of his father's arm, waved as gaily
+back. Half a hundred _matelots_ grinned affably at him as they paused in
+their toil at cabin lights and brass-work. Landon saluted punctiliously
+and Muhammed's brown eyes expressed a grave approval of his
+entertainment. The launch's prow was thrust into the gloom.
+
+Another gust sang lazily from the shore and the desert and shivered the
+fog. The patches of blue joined, grew wider, opened a triumphal arch for
+the descending sunbeams' entrance. A little more than a mile away the
+walls of the sea bastions shone white. The launch's speed increased.
+
+Before they reached the quayside the last wisp of vapor had disappeared.
+Land and sea were swathed in sun. Landon gave a little cackle of
+amusement and pointed behind him.
+
+"My yacht!" he cried gaily. "My over-anxious master has weighed anchor
+in pursuit of me. Word must have reached him of my having allowed myself
+to be persuaded into that vile lateen."
+
+The sub-lieutenant in charge swerved the tiller.
+
+"Let me take you straight to her," he said. "Let me signal her!"
+
+Landon appeared to consider.
+
+"Thanks, a thousand times," he said, "but a small matter of victualling
+which I promised my steward to deal with has just recurred to my mind. I
+will see to it and then signal for my own boat. After all, too, I might
+see a little of the town, now we have the sunshine to illuminate it. A
+couple of hours ago it was London in November, with a few additional
+smells!"
+
+The lieutenant laughed and turned the prow towards the shore again. He
+cast another look over his shoulder.
+
+"Is it possible that your master has information of, or suspects, that
+very lateen? It appears to me that he is chasing it!"
+
+Landon faced seaward and observed the yacht keenly.
+
+He laughed with great enjoyment.
+
+"He is a character, that skipper of mine," he said. "He is as likely as
+not to sink the unfortunate boat if he does not find me on board or get
+a reasonable account of me. I shall have to smooth matters down with a
+dollar or two."
+
+A minute later the launch slowed up against the little quay. The three
+passengers stepped ashore, Landon full of compliments and thanks. Still
+waving adieu, he, Muhammed, and the child paced contentedly off into the
+town. The lieutenant turned seaward again.
+
+A slightly bewildered frown clouded his face as he approached the
+_Diomède_. The yacht had anchored with the lateen alongside her, and a
+boat was pulling from her towards the warship. The lieutenant considered
+that for yachtsmen he had never seen a boat's crew pull faster.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+RATTIER LOSES HIS CALM
+
+
+Major D'Hubert, Provost Marshal of the French forces occupying
+Casablanca, grinned widely.
+
+"So you suffered him to escape?" he said.
+
+Commandant Rattier drummed fiercely on the office table.
+
+"Suffered?" he roared. "I entertained him--the _escroc_! I nourished
+him; I sent him ashore!"
+
+The soldier smiled and looked at Rattier's companion--Aylmer.
+
+"What open-hearted ingenuousness!" he chuckled. "You and I now, my
+Captain! When one has been officer of the day a few thousand times, or
+sat upon a few hundred courts-martial, or acted as _maître de logis_,
+one learns to sift a story then. And this one had its weak points, even
+for a sailor. Would any one not mentally deranged hire a lateen to take
+him aboard his own yacht? No, I should have required something better
+imagined than that--I."
+
+Aylmer shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"The man can make himself of an engaging personality, Major. Our friend
+acted according to the impulses of his generous soul. But the point is
+that our man is hidden in the town. We come to you for expert knowledge.
+Who would be likely to shelter him, and where? You will pardon our
+insistence and intrusion, but our need is very pressing. It is the
+child who is our concern, the child."
+
+D'Hubert made a gesture of assent.
+
+"Apart from my sincere affection for our simpleminded commandant,
+Monsieur, your tale is good enough for any honest man and a father of
+babes like myself. But this town of Casablanca is, in effect, a
+haystack. Your quarry has the best of chances to act the needle."
+
+He opened a door into an outer office and shouted a name.
+
+"Sergeant Perinaud!"
+
+A body filled the doorway and entered, bending the last few inches of
+its stature. The sergeant saluted and unfolded himself, his eyes
+reviewing the company with affable respect about two metres above the
+floor.
+
+"Visit the guardroom at each gate, see the lieutenants of the Spanish
+police and bring me back a list of parties which have left the town
+since morning. This is a matter of haste."
+
+The sergeant saluted again and then hesitated.
+
+"Is it permitted first to speak?" he asked.
+
+The major nodded jerkily.
+
+"It is, by chance, the movements of two men and a woman which are in
+question?" speculated Perinaud.
+
+Major d'Hubert opened his lips, shut them tight, meditated a moment, and
+then spoke. He turned and looked at his visitors.
+
+"The child? Is it of a stature to be disguised as a woman?" he asked.
+
+The sergeant interrupted with an apologetic gesture.
+
+"The figure of the woman I suggest was not seen by me. She travelled in
+an _arba_. My attention was drawn to the party thus. Two hours ago a
+band of the Beni M'Geel, Berbers, left by the eastern gate as for Ber
+Rechid. They had with them two Arabs and a woman under the canopy of
+which I spoke. Arab and Berber, especially if the latter are of the Beni
+M'Geel, do not usually travel together."
+
+"You observed the men?"
+
+"Not narrowly, my Major. One was of a smiling countenance, hook-nosed,
+and clad in a _djelab_ of brown. He walked beside the _arba_ and his
+talk, as I judged it, was to the woman, who, however, made no reply. The
+other had the hood of his _haik_ pulled far over his face. I did not see
+it."
+
+The major sat down at his desk, wrote a few lines swiftly, dashed sand
+upon the ink, and handed the completed note to his underling.
+
+"Let that be taken to General d'Amade without delay. Search may at the
+same time be made in the town for an Englishman, his child, and a Moor
+attendant who landed from a launch of the _Diomède_ some three hours
+back. The messenger may await the general's answer and bring it to me
+here."
+
+As the giant saluted for the third time and diminished himself into the
+doorway, Major d'Hubert confronted his friends with a pessimistic shake
+of the head.
+
+"My instinct is that Perinaud has already put his finger on the mystery.
+Your milord must be a man of resource. To have engaged the services of
+some of these wolves of Beni M'Geel within an hour of landing in a
+strange town shows more than talent. It amounts to genius."
+
+"This servant of his, Muhammed, is no stranger to the port," said
+Aylmer. "We learned that before we left Tangier. He is a well-known gun
+runner, and stands high in his profession. He has made these
+arrangements."
+
+Commandant Rattier flung aside his taciturnity with a suddenly impulsive
+oath.
+
+"Name of all little names!" he cried. "Do we sit and discuss this matter
+as if it were a comedietta in which we take no more than the languid
+interest of the dilettante! Are they not to be pursued--this past master
+of perjury and his lieutenant? Are we to mount the town walls and wave
+them affectionate farewells?"
+
+D'Hubert arched his brows with protest.
+
+"Pursuit? Certainly there is a question of pursuit, if it is allowed. I
+have just sent a _précis_ of your story to the commander-in-chief with a
+request for his leave to send a patrol. In a very few minutes we shall
+learn whether or no we have his permission."
+
+"Permission!" Rattier roared the word in the major's face. "I, Paul
+Rattier, do you see, have been made the laughing-stock of the fleet and,
+in time, no doubt, of half Europe! Am I to wait your general's
+permission to chase this scoundrel to Timbuctoo, if I so wish? I am the
+senior officer of marine here. I give myself leave, understand me--I!"
+
+"And these amiable Berbers?" asked the major, sarcastically. "Supposing
+they turn upon you and demand your reasons, and estimate your powers?
+Suppose, to be blunt, my friend, they put a bullet through your brains?"
+
+"Would that be any worse than wearing this hat of ridicule which this
+Baron de Landon has put upon my head? No Moor or Touareg or Berber shall
+stand between me and the object of my just retaliation, if I confront
+him!"
+
+A small bell tinkled in a corner. D'Hubert made a gesture of apology as
+he went towards a cabinet screened from the general office. He came back
+grinning.
+
+"My Paul," he chuckled, "there will be shortly an insuperable barrier
+between you and your desire. In another hour you will not be the senior
+officer of marine at Casablanca. I learn by wireless that the
+_Barfleur_, with the admiral on board, enters the roads within the
+hour."
+
+Rattier stood for an instant motionless. Then he turned and darted for
+the door.
+
+Before his fingers reached the handle Aylmer's grip was on his shoulder.
+With a passionate gesture of repulse the commandant shook him off.
+
+"I am not one to await admirals!" he roared. "I go to make arrangements.
+Within half an hour I leave the town--I. If I have to walk I will follow
+these Berber scoundrels, yes, if I have to crawl upon my knees!"
+
+As the two wrestled and argued on the threshold, the door opened from
+the outside. The massive proportions of the sergeant towered over them
+in respectful amazement. He saluted and deferentially edged a way for
+himself towards D'Hubert.
+
+"The general was in the act of passing, my Major," he explained. "He
+read your note and wrote his answer on the back in five words--he was
+amiable enough to inform me."
+
+The major untwisted the little roll of soiled paper and as he inspected
+it a smile creased his cheek. He chuckled.
+
+"A half troop of Goumiers!" he read. He looked at the frowning face of
+the commandant.
+
+"No need to go alone, my Paul. There is your escort." He hesitated a
+moment, debating. "Do either of you, by chance, speak Arabic?"
+
+"Am I an interpreter?" asked Rattier, bitterly. "Does one need a grammar
+and dictionary to arrest half a dozen scoundrels who are perfectly well
+aware why they are being chased, and whom one will take the liberty of
+shooting if they resist capture? For that plain English or French--or,
+for all practical purposes, Chinese--will suffice. Avoid alarming
+yourself on that subject, _mon ami_."
+
+The major grinned.
+
+"I was not thinking of your quarry but your colleagues, my pigeon. The
+Goumiers speak their own _argot_. They are good-hearted children, but
+apt to be tempestuous in matters of fighting." He meditated through
+another minute before he spoke with quick decision. "Sergeant! Prepare
+to accompany M. le Commandant within fifteen minutes."
+
+Perinaud saluted with entire imperturbability.
+
+"And my instructions, my Major?" he asked.
+
+"To return with the prisoners which Commandant Rattier will indicate to
+you, or, failing their capture, within twenty-four hours."
+
+"_Bien!_" Perinaud folded himself anaconda-like into the back office and
+disappeared. Ten minutes later, a period which D'Hubert filled with much
+voluble advice, there was the tramping of many horses' feet without.
+Aylmer and Rattier strolled out into the open at the major's heels.
+
+Under the command of one of their own native officers, forty horsemen of
+the famous Algerian yeomanry had reined up in the dusty street. They sat
+in their high peaked saddles, watching keenly the faces of D'Hubert and
+his companions. Aylmer noted the eager, alert expectation which filled
+each flashing brown eye. The Goumier, though he has proved his valor in
+more than one pitched battle against the men of his own blood, is not a
+man of war as we understand it. Manoeuvring, tactics, the orderliness
+of drill and discipline are not inherent in his nature. But the raid,
+the foray, the looting expedition are to him the apex and apogee of
+human bliss. Thin, modest of stomach and worldly possessions, he passes
+over the quickly reached horizon of the desert and is forgotten of the
+well-drilled colleagues he leaves behind. But see his return! Swelling
+with good victuals, jingling with caparison of desert wealth, with
+chicken and kid pendent from his saddle-bow, who more popular than he?
+The savory incense of his mess attracts all nostrils; his lavishly
+scattered loot widens the already capacious circle of his friends.
+Winning it, or wasting it when won, loot is the pivot on which his
+reckless, joyous, heedless existence swings.
+
+Rising from the rear as a cathedral tower rises above the encircling
+dwellings at its base, Perinaud's head and shoulders topped the ranks.
+His amiable smile, this time, had about it something of more than
+ordinary deference. It was the near kin of a smirk, and his yellow
+moustache was twisted fiercely upwards. Aylmer followed the direction of
+his glance to find it focussed upon Claire Van Arlen.
+
+Her eyes met his. She made him a little gesture, half of appeal, as it
+seemed, half of command.
+
+As he covered the few yards which separated them, he noted, with a queer
+tightening of the heart, the deep shadows which had grown beneath her
+eyes. But at the same time it was not all anxiety or weariness which
+her face expressed. There was determination also. And this was reflected
+in Mr. Van Arlen's glance. It dwelled upon Aylmer with expectancy and
+more than expectancy,--with hope.
+
+Without preamble he answered the question which their eyes had asked.
+They heard him in silence to the end, and as he finished, the girl's
+first comment was no more than a little sigh.
+
+"The sergeant's surmise is right; my instinct tells me that," said
+Aylmer. "A few hours--and I shall be putting the child in your arms
+again."
+
+She looked up at the double rank of horsemen. A sudden vivid flash of
+feeling passed over her features. Her breath came with a little pant.
+
+"Ah, if I could ride with you!" she said fiercely. "If I could do more
+than wait!"
+
+The color mounted to her cheeks, to her brow. A new note sounded in her
+voice.
+
+"If they show fight--these men? If, rather than lose the child, he"--her
+voice sank unsteadily for a moment--"does him an injury? You would not
+spare him?"
+
+He smiled a little wearily.
+
+"So you distrust me still?" he asked. "Why should I spare him? Because,
+to my shame, we are of one blood?"
+
+Mr. Van Arlen's thin hand rose in deprecation.
+
+"We can leave this matter confidently in Captain Aylmer's hands," he
+said. "We have only the one thing to think of--the child."
+
+"No!" she cried vehemently. "I want the child, but I want more than
+that. I want retribution. I want Landon in the dust. I want him made to
+feel, as I feel. The child is much, but he is not all. Have you
+forgotten the last eight years of my sister's life? Do you remember what
+she has undergone and still has to undergo if the father of her son wins
+this trick, as my heart tells me he will win it? I want vengeance. I
+want every chance to grasp it seized. I should not hesitate, where his
+kinsman might."
+
+Aylmer nodded gravely.
+
+"I understand," he said quietly. "Perhaps it is natural. But you keep
+forgetting the one thing--that I work for my own reward. Even pity would
+be a frail barrier between me and that."
+
+Watching her keenly, he saw a quiver of repulsion tremble about her
+lips, but it did not stay. She set them rather into grimness. She looked
+at him keenly, debatingly, indeed, as if she weighed his words and
+sought to set a value on them.
+
+"Yes," she said, and there was a breathlessness in her tone as if she
+slurred words which she did not dare to let herself hear. "I, too,
+understand. And my father would consider no price too high for the
+service which won back his grandchild, and removed the menace of
+Landon's existence from our lives."
+
+Van Arlen bowed unconsciously--his courteous, instinctive inclination of
+assent.
+
+"Such a service would be beyond price or reward," he said quietly. "We
+could only do our best."
+
+But there was a queerly puzzled look in his eyes as they wandered from
+Aylmer to his daughter's face. He frowned a little, still unconsciously,
+in the throes of an obvious bewilderment.
+
+Aylmer looked at him once, swiftly, speculatively, and then turned
+steadily towards Claire.
+
+"And you?" he asked quietly.
+
+She did not flinch; she did not even show, this time, any sign of
+repulsion. The note in her voice now was exasperation, the nervous
+defiance of one confronting an intolerable situation from which there
+was no escape.
+
+"I? I should think as my father thinks," she said coolly. She turned as
+she spoke and looked impatiently at the line of waiting horsemen.
+
+Aylmer nodded.
+
+"Thank you," he said briskly. He made a sign towards Perinaud, who
+jogged forward leading the spare horse whose bridle he had been holding.
+Aylmer vaulted into the saddle, and reined in beside his friend Rattier,
+who, using the pommel for a desk, was writing a few lines of instruction
+to his lieutenant. A guttural order rumbled from the native officer's
+lips.
+
+The line of horsemen wheeled and deployed into lines of four. With a
+jingle of accoutrements, they jogged off into the dust of the allies
+towards the eastern gate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE AMBUSH OF THE BROOM
+
+
+"The wells of El Djebir, Monsieur," explained Sergeant Perinaud. "It is
+here we should find our men, if they are proceeding by the shortest
+route to their hills. If not--" He shrugged his shoulders significantly.
+
+The horses were roused from their gentle amble into a gallop. The dust
+rose from fourscore hoofs as the Goumiers raced down in an enveloping
+cloud upon the cluster of palms and thicket of broom scrub which
+surrounded the watering-place. They pulled their horses upon their
+haunches; they shouted in hoarse disappointment. The shadowed
+resting-place beneath the palms was empty. Not a living soul was in
+sight.
+
+Perinaud shrugged his shoulders again.
+
+"This is very conclusive, Monsieur. The party we seek has thought fit to
+leave the open road and to bury themselves in the recesses of the jungle
+and the northern gorges of the river. They did not do that without a
+reason. It remains to follow, if we can."
+
+The native officer shouted something and Perinaud turned swiftly in the
+saddle to stare down the track which they had been following. A white
+figure bestriding a brown horse was thundering towards them, the rider's
+_haik_ fluttering out snowily against the dun background of the earth.
+
+"So Monsieur thought fit to leave me--me!" expostulated Daoud, as he
+drew rein at Aylmer's side. "I, I who address you, am told by the chance
+gossip of the Sôk that this expedition has set out without a word of
+warning, to seek bandits--where?" He threw abroad his arms in derision.
+"On the broad and open road, within sound, nay, almost within sight, of
+the patrols of Casablanca. I ask, is it here that knaves are likely to
+hide their knavery? Your venture and its object are already the pivot on
+which the laughter of the market-place swings."
+
+He turned and pointed vehemently towards the north.
+
+"Has none of your trained spies had the wit or the courage to tell you
+that a hundred of these Beni M'Geel Berbers have encamped in the
+thickets of the Bou Gherba gorge this ten days back? And yet the
+market-place knows it, as it knows a hundred things beneath your
+concern."
+
+Perinaud looked the Moor up and down. Then he turned leisurely towards
+Aylmer.
+
+"He is a safe man, this?" he asked. "You guarantee him?"
+
+Aylmer smiled, and shrugged his shoulders towards the waiting Goumiers.
+
+"They are all for their own hand, these, are they not, Sergeant? Yes, I
+will guarantee that he seeks to serve me, for the moment, and in serving
+me, himself. It is the way with these desert folk. They cannot manage
+large issues, and they split into factions to follow small ones. Let us
+hear him and, if you see no objection, take his advice. He has been in
+Casablanca before."
+
+Perinaud grunted and eyed the Moor grudgingly.
+
+"Well, man of infinite knowledge," he said in Arabic. "You
+propose--what?"
+
+"Are there two courses before us?" asked Daoud, disdainfully. "Or are we
+to await reinforcements? We have to surround this lair of desert cats."
+
+"Where?" asked Perinaud, laconically.
+
+The Moor wheeled his stallion with an elaborate caracole.
+
+"If the Sidi had used my services from the first," he said, "he would
+have been saved an hour's ride. Forward, Sidi!"
+
+The sergeant lifted his eyebrows at Aylmer with an air of comical
+resignation. To the native officer he gave a decisive little nod. With
+Daoud leading, the brown stallion arching his neck in remonstrance to a
+tightened rein and goading spur, the column broke formation and in
+single file turned northwards into the broom scrub which fringes the
+tilled lands of the Chawia.
+
+The horsemen rode in silence. The mantle of Rattier's taciturnity, rent
+to rags in D'Hubert's office, seemed to have been restored to its
+pristine imperviousness, seemed, indeed, to hang heavy upon the spirits
+of the whole company. Now and again the commandant's lips moved
+uneasily, but the spoken word died still-born. A Goumier would address
+fervent maledictions to the memory of the female ancestors of a
+stumbling horse; curt conferences took place at long intervals between
+Perinaud and the native officer. But apart from this, the thud of hoofs
+meeting sand or earth and the dull rap of rein or stirrup leather were
+all the sounds which broke the stillness. The heavy noontide heat seemed
+to have swallowed into silence all sound. For sound denotes creative
+energy, and energy, when the sun is at its zenith in South Morocco, is
+sapped.
+
+Their course, as Aylmer was quick to notice, led perpetually upward, but
+in gradients which almost eluded notice. Gray blue in the haze of
+distance, the rolling uplands culminated in a range of low hills, but
+these were a full day's march beyond their powers. Their goal, if it
+were to be reached within daylight, must be nearer than that. His
+attention, as the hours went monotonously by, was at last drawn to a gap
+in the far mapped expanse of vegetation.
+
+A line of green, deeper and of more luxuriant growth than the thickets
+around them, divided the jungle from east to west. Daoud, turning in his
+saddle, waved his hand in an important gesture.
+
+"The Gorge of the Bou Djerba, Sidi," he said. "It is my advice that I go
+forward to reconnoitre--alone."
+
+Aylmer looked at Perinaud. The sergeant shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Monsieur guarantees this fellow, I understand? Well, let him justify
+himself. I have no objections."
+
+Rattier interrupted.
+
+"It is well understood that I deal with this M. de Landon if he is
+there, I alone? Your man, now, if he suddenly confronts him--" He broke
+off with a meaning gesture. "I do not wish my interview with him
+anticipated."
+
+In spite of himself, a smile broke the imperturbability of the
+sergeant's face. With a suggestive jerk of the hand he dismissed Daoud,
+who cantered on into and was lost in the jungle of mallow. Perinaud
+turned sympathetic and now perfectly grave features towards the
+commandant.
+
+"Monsieur may be easy in his mind," he said quietly. "The man we seek,
+if I have understood his talents rightly, is hardly likely to be subdued
+without the display of some force and intelligence."
+
+He turned to give the order to dismount. Rattier watched him with an air
+of baffled exasperation. There had been a gentle emphasis on the last
+two words which could scarcely be misunderstood, and as the sailor
+ruminated over them, his taciturnity showed renewed signs of failing
+before the rising tide of his wrath. A sudden diversion averted an
+outbreak.
+
+For a gunshot rang out among the woodland silences into which Daoud had
+disappeared. It was instantly replied to by the shriller snap of a
+revolver. And this was followed by a fusillade of five more reports as
+the weapon was emptied. The Moor's voice was suddenly uplifted.
+
+"To me, Sidi!" he was shouting vehemently. "To me!"
+
+The native officer thundered an order. In a twinkling the men were back
+in their saddles and, in irregular formation, threading the aisles of
+thicket at a canter. Aylmer and Rattier followed the sergeant, riding
+abreast.
+
+There came another report. A bullet whistled between the pair, and from
+Rattier came a little growl of satisfaction. If there was to be a fight,
+he seemed to imply, his promised interview with Landon would assume
+proportions which were entirely pleasing to him. Perinaud increased his
+horse's pace, flinging alert glances each side of him rather than in
+front.
+
+A couple of hundred yards at speed and the forest maze opened into a
+wide clearing, deeply overgrown with mallow and broom. Through the
+middle of this, his horse laboring against the growth which was full
+five feet high, rode Daoud, revolver in hand. A short distance ahead of
+him the green thicket was grooved in half a dozen places, as unseen
+bodies crashed through. Daoud's aim was poised and then withdrawn a
+score of times in as many seconds. The flicker of a white _haik_ would
+show for a brief instant here and there, and then be swallowed by the
+jungle.
+
+Daoud would answer these appearances with a bullet, one which apparently
+invariably missed its mark, for the echo of a mocking triumph greeted
+them. He turned irritably in the direction of his companions.
+
+He waved his hand significantly, motioning them to deploy right and
+left, to surround the thicket. Perinaud answered with a comprehending
+nod.
+
+But Rattier had neither the time nor the inclination for a display of
+tactics. As Daoud turned his horse to emerge from the mallow, the
+commandant spurred his charger into the thick of it. And he shouted, he
+whirled up his right hand, grasping his revolver, with fierce
+gesticulations of encouragement.
+
+The Goumiers saw, heard, and found little room for hesitation in their
+mood. Like a torrent released at the breaking of a dam, they followed.
+Perinaud thundered an ineffectual protest.
+
+It fell on deaf ears. The green brake was furrowed by a dozen lanes
+before their impact and then, relentlessly, as it seemed, closed behind
+them. The horses bucked, plunged, but made little headway. From one of
+them came a sudden whinnying shriek of pain.
+
+Then it sank under its rider as the knife which had severed its tendons
+slipped back into the cover from which it had been so swiftly and so
+silently thrust.
+
+The fallen Goumier cleared himself and scrambled to his feet. His face
+alone was clear in the sea of vegetation, and it was a mask of anger and
+bewilderment. And then it, too, was gone with a sudden panting cry.
+
+Aylmer gave a little gasp. The head was there and then it was not. It
+sank into the green as the swimmer sinks into the blue in a
+shark-infested sea. But this shark was a human one, and its teeth a long
+Berber knife. The fugitives of the Beni M'Geel had chosen their
+battle-ground well.
+
+Horse or man, lance or carbine--what were they against the daggers which
+the tussocks veiled? Mocking cries echoed in the thicket. Another horse
+shrieked and fell; another face showed white above the green and then
+was gone. The Goumiers snarled with rage as they spurred furiously
+forward, but the clinging mallow held them, shackled them, suffocated
+them with its density. There was a note of panic in their shouts; they
+battled no longer for victory but for escape.
+
+The leader of the reckless charge was in slightly better case than the
+majority. Rattier and one or two others, by chance of circumstances,
+stood in wider spaces, where the dagger men could not reach them unseen.
+They sat in their saddles, alert for opportunity, quivering with rage,
+but useless. Their glances flashed from side to side, their eyes
+gleamed, but opportunity evaded them. And the cries of the unseen enemy
+still mocked them from the ambush.
+
+Carried away by impulse, Aylmer would have joined the charge. Perinaud's
+hand fell upon his reins with a grip of iron. Aylmer made as if he would
+release them by force.
+
+The sergeant made a gesture of appeal.
+
+"No, my Captain! This is serious. A little coolness, a little restraint,
+and we pull them out of this! But to follow! That spells death for us
+all!"
+
+He leaped from the saddle, drew his carbine from the bucket, and flung
+to Aylmer the reins of both horses.
+
+"If Monsieur will be so obliging?" he said quickly, and turned towards
+the nearest tree, a cedar which towered twenty feet above the dwarfed
+bolls of cork. He climbed lithely, rapidly, resting, at last, within a
+few feet of the top. He leaned his carbine upon a bough, took a steady
+aim, and fired.
+
+A shriek answered the report--a shriek muffled in the blanket of the
+broom.
+
+"_Courage, mes enfants!_" said Perinaud, placidly. "That accounted for
+one, and from here I see all. There are but six. Give me time and the
+affair completes itself effectually."
+
+Again he dwelled upon his aim, hesitated, fired, shook his head in
+self-reproach and fired again. This time he gave a little nod of
+satisfaction.
+
+"Two!" he cried complacently. "Two, my children!" and the report of his
+rifle punctuated the announcement. "So!" went on the sergeant, as if he
+commented on the score at a rifle range. "So! We write full stop to
+_Monsieur le troisième_. Aha! _Messieurs quatrième_, _cinquième_ and
+_sixième_--it is poor stuff to push through, the broom. No, I do not see
+you, Messieurs, but I see where you run like rabbits, and perhaps we may
+chance a bullet--there!"
+
+The report of the last cartridge in the magazine was answered by another
+yell. A brown-clad body shot into the air out of the undergrowth and
+subsided limply. Perinaud nodded again.
+
+"Through the brain, my friend, through the brain. Yes, I still see you,
+my two little doves. We have to reload. Four for one magazine of five
+cartridges is not bad, you will allow. You are trapped, are you not? In
+the broom you cannot escape me; in the open you will be ridden down.
+Well, it is to be in the broom, is it? So! _Voilà, Monsieur le
+cinquième!_ That closes your account. As for you, my sixth friend, you
+have chosen the thicket, have you? You are very still; we must
+speculate, we must invite the co-operation of chance, who is a good
+friend to Sergeant Perinaud as a rule. There! No, is that not in the
+middle of the target? We must try again. Umph! I wonder if you are,
+after all, dead, my pigeon. Holà, there! Monsieur le Commandant. If you
+will be good enough to step fifteen long paces to the right, following
+the motion of my hand, you will be able to inform me if my last shot was
+a bull's-eye, an outer, or even--shame to me if it is so--a miss. Yes,
+Monsieur, that is the spot. Where the patch of broom outcrops between
+those two stumps of cork."
+
+Rattier beat a road laboriously through the clinging stems as the
+sergeant's finger motioned. A sudden muffled exclamation burst from him;
+he lurched sideways, stumbled, and fell prone. The green stalks rustled
+and shook as something brown and indistinguishable shot through them in
+the direction in which the waiting Goumiers were thickest.
+
+Perinaud gave a warning cry.
+
+"Look to yourselves! I cannot shoot; he is in line between us!"
+
+One of the horsemen shouted and spurred his stallion towards the fringe
+of the undergrowth furthest from the point at which the charge had
+entered it. His impulsive action countered Perinaud's manifest purpose
+of firing, for he, too, had seen the agitation of the mallow in that
+direction. The horseman bounded forward, the horse clearing the
+obstructions in a series of jerky little leaps. Beside the edge of the
+clearing they halted, the man searching the cover in front of him and on
+each side keenly.
+
+A brown something snaked out of the thicket at his back. Steel flashed
+in the sun. The Goumier toppled from the saddle, and a brown figure,
+bowing flat across the horse's withers, seemed to have replaced him
+almost in the moment of his fall. Spurred desperately by his new rider,
+the stallion burst away down the cork tree alleys.
+
+A ragged volley rattled out. Splinters flew wide from a dozen trees, but
+horse and rider fled on. The Goumiers called fiercely on the name of a
+dozen saints of Islam to qualify their rage as they thrust their
+chargers out of the tangle in pursuit. Perinaud and their officer yelled
+strenuous commands.
+
+Crestfallen and sullen, the troopers reined in, listening in silence to
+the commination addressed to them from the pulpit of the cedar.
+
+"Is one lesson insufficient?" thundered Perinaud. "Do we practise the
+arts of war or are we conducting a _ralli-papier_? Like hares you were
+decoyed into this ambush, and, flinging your red-hot experience to the
+winds, you are prepared to be drawn, as likely as not, into another.
+Collect yourselves, morally as well as physically, if you please."
+
+They reined in among the cork trees, and half a dozen, flinging their
+reins to comrades, pushed back on foot into the cover. A string of
+oaths and maledictions, twice repeated, told of what they found. They
+came back with the sullen tread of those bearing the heavy burdens of
+defeat and death. They laid the bodies of their two comrades at the foot
+of the cedar.
+
+Rattier, leaning upon Aylmer's arm, swore vehemently. The blood dripped
+from a gash across his wrist, but he raised it to shake a fist in the
+direction taken by the fugitive.
+
+"Another item in M. de Landon's ledger, name of all names!" he cried.
+"But we shall see, my friends, we shall see. The hand is not played out
+yet, believe me!"
+
+"Perhaps not," agreed Aylmer, "but you, at any rate, have cut out of the
+deal, or have been cut out," he added significantly, pointing to the
+wounded arm.
+
+The commandant drew himself away with a fierce jerk.
+
+"I!" he cried. "Is a cut finger--a graze--to send me weeping to the
+ambulance? The scoundrel who deceived me I pursue to the world's end! He
+has scored once more. It is the last time--this!"
+
+He raised himself to his full height in a grandiloquent gesture
+and--fell fainting into Perinaud's arms. The sergeant grunted morosely
+and pointed to a crimson stain which had welled through the blue tunic
+and was rapidly spreading.
+
+"If it is not serious, I thank Our Lady and all the listening Saints for
+this!" he said devoutly. "He is impossible as a colleague on
+reconnaissance, this energetic commandant. It was his recklessness which
+led these men into a trap which at any other moment they would have
+avoided. We have lost two men and five horses by the result of this
+escapade. What are your suggestions now, Monsieur?"
+
+Aylmer hesitated.
+
+"For the moment have you not done enough?" he asked. "After all, your
+service is to France, not to intruders like myself. My Moorish servant
+and I might continue to reconnoitre alone. Your hands are full enough,
+are they not?"
+
+The other looked at him queerly.
+
+"Perhaps Monsieur thinks that so far we have been a hindrance rather
+than a help to his purposes. Monsieur has reason. At the same time we
+might justly, in my opinion, be permitted another chance to repair our
+prestige."
+
+Aylmer smiled. Perinaud's voice was chilly. The glance he directed at
+the crestfallen Goumiers let it be inferred that his words were also
+designed to reach their address. They shuffled and kicked at the ground
+restlessly as they listened.
+
+"It is for you, of course, to direct matters, Sergeant!" he said
+quickly. "But the commandant, without a doubt, must be removed at once
+to hospital."
+
+"Without a doubt, Monsieur," agreed Perinaud, with sudden cheerfulness.
+"We will escort him and the dismounted men out of the forest into the
+open farm lands, where patrols are not infrequent and nothing is to be
+feared. They will then be about twenty kilometres from the town. The
+best mounted will proceed as quickly as possible to fetch the ambulance.
+Of the others, twenty will escort the commandant's stretcher--it is
+perfectly feasible to make a good one of poles which we will cut and
+over which we will button two greatcoats--the five new-made _fantassins_
+will walk. The remaining dozen and you and I, Monsieur, will
+proceed--with energy, if you please, but certainly with prudence."
+
+Perinaud closed his little homily with the satisfied air of an orator
+who has arrived at and correctly delivered an anticipated peroration.
+
+And chance, who may have been listening, offered yet another of her
+favors to her protégé. As the little column debouched from the trees
+into the open expanse of alluvial country, a cloud of brown dust was
+rising on the far side of the fringing barley fields. Perinaud gave an
+exclamation of content.
+
+"It is the Tirailleurs with their major," he explained. "They have
+patrolled the Ber Rechid road and made a reconnaissance to get cattle.
+They will have an ambulance, or at least a mule litter."
+
+He put his horse to the gallop. The others, following more sedately, saw
+him reach and disappear among the ranks of white-uniformed men, whose
+cummerbunds and tarbooshes winked a cheerful scarlet against the dun
+fallow or green cropping of the fields. And there was an air of
+animation about the column accounted for, perhaps, by the fact that
+innumerable kids frisked about their mothers as the captured goats were
+herded along the track, while droves of small, wiry cattle bellowed and
+butted at each other, their captors, and every moving object within
+reach of their serviceable little horns.
+
+Perinaud, who had dismounted, was standing and speaking with an air of
+respect and precision to a mounted officer. The latter turned as Aylmer
+and his companions approached, and the former could barely restrain a
+start of consternation and surprise. For a deep, flaming groove dinted
+the man's forehead from temple to temple, while the hand which he raised
+in salute was one huge scar from knuckles to wrist. His brown eyes
+inspected Aylmer with friendly attention.
+
+"At your service, _mon Capitaine_," he said. "Sergeant Perinaud has
+explained your needs."
+
+Aylmer began to express his thanks. The other nodded pleasantly and gave
+an order. From the rear an ambulance was trotted forward: a
+gray-moustached doctor in uniform swung himself from his saddle and bent
+over Rattier, who was still unconscious.
+
+A moment later he looked up.
+
+"Loss of blood," he said laconically. "He has a gash two fingers deep
+behind the shoulder. Severe, but not serious--with care. We will see to
+him."
+
+The officer nodded again. He looked at Aylmer.
+
+"And yourself, Monsieur?" he asked.
+
+Aylmer made a gesture towards the forest and the distant uplands.
+
+"With your leave, we will continue our--investigations, Major," he said.
+
+The other shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"The forest, _mon ami_? We, do you see, have confined our operations so
+far to the plough lands, the open. I have no store of experience to draw
+upon for your advice. You will be pioneers. I shall hope to have the
+benefit of your experience on your return. Maillot is my name, Monsieur,
+and I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you at the headquarters of my
+regiment outside the Fedallah Gate. For the moment, then, _au revoir_!"
+
+He smiled cheerfully, saluted, and gave an order. The tramp and jingle
+of the march were renewed. The dust cloud began to form again where it
+had settled, and the Tirailleurs swung off seawards with the elastic
+step which those who wear the _godillot_ acquire, and which makes them
+the envy of their colleagues in the regulars who are doomed to the
+precise lacing of the _soulier_. Perinaud made a gesture of admiration,
+as with Aylmer and his half score of Goumiers he watched them go.
+
+"Monsieur has seen the bravest man and the finest leader of all the
+troops of France," he remarked.
+
+"Major Maillot?"
+
+"But certainly the major, Monsieur. He needs no medals to prove what he
+is and where he has been. His deeds are witnessed on his brow and
+hands."
+
+He hesitated and then spoke quickly.
+
+"I have no wish to vaunt the deeds of Frenchmen to you, a foreigner,
+Monsieur, but that is a man in whom we may take an honest pride. The
+scar you saw came to him by Settat. He and a picket were cut off from
+the main body by a hidden reserve of the enemy. They retreated fighting
+and were within measurable distance of safety. And then one of our
+fallen, whom they had left for dead, cried aloud out of the hands of the
+enemy. How these savages were dealing with him I shall not disgust
+Monsieur by telling. Suffice it to say that they were working the will
+of devils upon him and, in spite of his manhood, he shrieked. The major
+heard, and like a thunderbolt turned and charged straight for the enemy,
+and his men, without a thought of the peril, turned with him, a dozen
+perhaps, against five score. But those hundred Moors were in full
+retreat before the main body of the regiment raced up to the rescue, and
+they picked their major up wounded as you have seen, lying across the
+body of the man he had fought to save, with seven dead foes ringed round
+him.... They have a confident air, these Tirailleurs of ours. Some say
+an insolent one. Well, Monsieur, they have their pride, it must be
+allowed, but God knows when they are led as that man leads they have a
+right to it."
+
+Aylmer nodded. Slowly they turned their horses' heads forestwards again.
+Perinaud looked at the line of trees abstractedly and then back again at
+the receding column.
+
+"France does not desert her children if she remembers," he remarked
+quietly. "It is well that we met these men and their major. He is a man
+who will see to it that we are not forgotten, if chance wills that we do
+not soon return. The task of seeking us would be one after his own
+heart, and his Tirailleurs would think with him." He smiled confidently.
+"So we may go forward with an easy mind, _mon Capitaine_. We are
+pioneers, as the major said. To pioneers should come adventures, if they
+are worthy of their name."
+
+He touched his stallion's flank with the spur. The little band of
+horsemen cantered up and into the shadow of the cork trees. And there
+was an air of arrogance and recklessness about the riders. All trace of
+discomfiture of an hour back was gone. It was as if the Tirailleurs had
+breathed an infection of valor around them--a bacillus of intrepidity
+which their major had cultivated with the point of his untiring sword.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE TRAP
+
+
+"That our friends have left is obvious," said Daoud. "The question is
+how long ago and whither."
+
+The litter of a recently disturbed encampment cumbered the ground. Rags,
+the feathers of lately plucked chickens, the ashes of recently
+extinguished fires abounded. But whether the camp had been struck days
+or only hours before it was impossible to determine. Night as well as
+day had been rainless, and the dry dust left no trail perceptible to
+European eyes. Daoud, however, examined the soil carefully.
+
+"They have gone south," he declared at last. "They have struck out of
+the forest and back towards the plain. This grows interesting."
+
+Perinaud gave a sniff.
+
+"The reason is obvious," he said a little contemptuously. "Where did
+they obtain water? From the spring which welled up at the foot of that
+cactus to the left. But now it is dry and cracking mud."
+
+Daoud nodded grudgingly.
+
+"Possibly," he allowed. "The nearest wells are at Ain Djemma."
+
+"Held in force by two companies of the Legion," said Perinaud. "They are
+hardly likely to show themselves there. No, if they have gone south they
+are seeking the Wad el Mella. They will follow the stream through the
+gorge towards their own foothills from which it issues."
+
+"This river? How far is it?" asked Aylmer.
+
+"Eight kilometres, possibly ten," said Perinaud. "There are _duars_ and
+encampments along its banks in a dozen places. We ought to get news of
+our men, even if we do not overtake them."
+
+"Our horses have come a matter of thirty kilometres already," said
+Aylmer.
+
+"Then as soon as possible they must do ten more," answered the sergeant,
+energetically. "Without water we cannot camp, any more than our friends
+of the Beni M'Geel. _En avance!_"
+
+Aylmer drew his horse up beside Perinaud's as for the second time they
+left the shelter of the trees and ambled out on to the plain. The
+westering sun was turning it to broad belts of dun, and yellow, and
+green, as the slanting beams fell upon earth, or marigold weed, or
+crops. Four or five miles distant to their front the rolling uplands
+culminated in a belt of squat but far-branching trees.
+
+"There, one may suppose, are the river and the gorge," he suggested.
+"The inhabitants of these _duars_, of which you speak? How will they
+greet us?"
+
+Perinaud shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"It remains for Fate to show us, Monsieur. There were some drastic
+whippings of the Moors within this district a few weeks back. How well
+they have learned the lesson taught them then we shall have to prove."
+
+Aylmer hesitated.
+
+"It is not with the purpose of getting embroiled in skirmishes that I
+have come," he said quietly. "You understand that my duty, for the
+moment, is to keep myself alive until my object is achieved."
+
+Perinaud grinned drily.
+
+"That is a remark which a poltroon would not have dared to make,
+Monsieur, and shows you to be a brave man. Be assured that my efforts
+towards maintaining an unperforated skin will be as energetic as your
+own. Hysterical madness, such as we were involved in in the forest,
+shall not recur, if I can help it. My purpose is to camp, as soon as we
+reach water, and then to allow your omniscient Monsieur Daoud to conduct
+his investigations under cover of the darkness."
+
+As the red disk of the sun sank below the seaward horizon, they topped
+the gentle rise which terminated in a belt of trees. Not far below them,
+belling musically through the dusk, came the song of the ripples. Half a
+mile away, on the far side of the gorge, a dim light twinkled in the
+growing darkness.
+
+Perinaud pointed towards a group of palms.
+
+"Here, Monsieur," he explained, "you will find dry earth. You have your
+cloak. Your saddle is a practical pillow. I have bread, a ration or two
+of preserved soup, some beans, coffee, a tin of milk, sugar. At the
+_duar_, where we see that light, are--possibly--chickens. But we are
+quite as likely to receive a bullet. What does Monsieur advise?"
+
+Aylmer smiled.
+
+"An immediate picnic. In the friendliest of _duars_ cannibal hordes
+thirsting for our blood would await us, if we were reckless enough to
+sleep among them. I prefer to housekeep _à la belle étoile_."
+
+The sergeant nodded and gave his orders. Sentries slipped right and left
+into the night. A tiny fire was kindled in a hollow between two
+boulders. The tins of preserved soup gave up their secrets, and the
+ration bread proved that the military bakers of France have discovered
+the secret of making loaves which will remain fresh and eatable through
+a whole week of desert marches. Coffee succeeded--coffee made in the
+empty vegetable tin, and worthy of Maxim's or the Ritz.
+
+Daoud drank his portion, shrugged his shoulders fatalistically at the
+sleeping places which the Goumiers were preparing, and then, without
+comment, vanished into the night.
+
+Aylmer lay back upon his cloak, his head pillowed upon his arm, his pipe
+between his teeth. He was enjoying to the full the sensations of a
+pleasantly weary and well-fed horseman. The first drowsy challenge of
+sleep touched his eyes and brain.
+
+The very next instant, as it seemed to him, he was on his feet, revolver
+in hand, searching the dark aisles of the forest on either side. A shout
+had echoed from one of the sentries, a hoarse challenge followed almost
+on the instant by a shot.
+
+The cry was repeated, shriller this time with the insistence of anxiety.
+"_Au secours!_" came the Goumier's voice. "_Au secours!_ There are a
+score of them; they are all around me!"
+
+In silence, but with a wave of the hand, Perinaud dispersed his men into
+open order and doubled towards the sounds of conflict. Aylmer ran with
+them, making more noise in his heavy boots than the whole of the party
+made in their _souliers_. He heard Perinaud whisper an emphatic oath of
+disgust as he tripped over a fallen branch and smashed heavily through a
+cactus bush. The next instant both of them fell together, over a soft,
+woolly obstruction, which stirred faintly under their feet. Meanwhile,
+half a dozen rifles were flashing red in the night, and the woodland
+echoes tossed the reports from thicket to thicket.
+
+Perinaud swore again viciously, scrambled to his feet, and shouted.
+
+"Imbeciles! Cease fire!" he thundered. "They are sheep, these Moors of
+yours, sheep! A pretty night's work! You have killed probably a dozen,
+and we have no means of transport."
+
+Shamefacedly the Goumiers crowded round to feel the fatness of the
+victim which had lain in Aylmer's path. As they felt and appraised it,
+their voices resumed a note of philosophic content. It was indeed a slur
+upon the collectedness of the Goumiers as a whole that Hassan el Fehmi,
+the sentry, had been betrayed into this indiscretion. But the dead
+sheep, look you, was of an unlooked-for plumpness, and breakfast must be
+partaken of sooner or later. There would be cutlets, and room might be
+found on a saddle or two for a couple of _gigots_. No, this was not all
+loss, this night alarm. There were compensations.
+
+Perinaud declined to meet these representations in the spirit in which
+they were made.
+
+"Looters! Robbers of hen roosts!" he cried. "The whole of your thoughts
+are centered, as ever, on your unworthy stomachs. The compensation for
+this outrage will be made to the owners from your pay, let me tell you,
+from your pay! You have raised the country on us with your shootings;
+within a matter of minutes we shall have the Moors here in earnest, be
+assured of that!"
+
+Wrathfully he led the way back to the bivouac and carefully extinguished
+every cinder of the fire.
+
+"And now," he ordered, "our duty is to wait--beside our horses. If it
+will not inconvenience Monsieur, I should be obliged if he will defer
+sleeping, for the present. If we are not molested for the next hour or
+two, it will be different. The moon rises before midnight and after that
+a couple of sentries will amply suffice."
+
+It was a memory which stayed by Aylmer for many a month--that long,
+silent, and very weary vigil of the next few hours. He sat, with his
+back supported by a palm trunk, the haltering rein of his horse in his
+hand, his eyes trying vainly to pierce the gloom which surrounded him,
+and his ears strained to attention.
+
+The forest, though in the windless calm not a leaf fluttered, was full
+of disquieting noises. There were rustlings, faint, half perceptible
+crackings of twigs, dull, muffled, resistant sounds from the earth which
+must surely be caused by human footfall. Once his whole frame sprung
+into startled alertness as a night bird shrieked in the cork branches
+not twenty yards away. The faint but distinct after-echo of a chorussed
+sigh told him how a dozen other pulses had leaped with his. The quick,
+irregular darting run of a small animal--a jerboa or a forest
+rat--produced a little less disturbing effect. But the soft, stolid
+breathing of his horse, as its breath beat past his shoulder, was a
+soothing, soporific sound which his nerves welcomed, yet seemed to
+protest against as tending to lull him into an unalert insecurity. With
+a sudden qualm of reproach he found his head dropping sideways and
+smiting lightly the trunk of the palm. He drew himself up with a quick,
+decisive tautening of his muscles. He would not sleep; his eyelids
+almost ached with the intensity with which he held them apart.
+
+Sleep, like fate, is a tricky jade to defy. It was Perinaud's voice,
+level and stolid, but with a faint note of sarcasm, which aroused him.
+
+"Monsieur may now sleep in comfort if he will," suggested the sergeant.
+"There is little fear from surprise with such a moon."
+
+Aylmer blinked. The round white orb was sending its rays in full flood
+through the broad fans of the palm leaves overhead. It tinged the cork
+trees with silver radiance; it produced an effect of grateful coolness
+in the cinder-dry thickets and powdery earth. It was as if dew had
+fallen, a dew of light. And the shadows of the gorge were of a velvet
+blackness in contrast.
+
+Aylmer looked carefully round. It was as Perinaud said. The forest
+spaces were clear; one could trace them almost as distinctly as in the
+daylight. No enemy could steal upon them unseen.
+
+And so it was with a little sigh of content that he laid his head back
+upon his saddle, pulled his cloak more disposedly about him, and
+prepared to give nature freely what during the past three hours she had
+stolen.
+
+With the usual result. Sleep deserted him. He closed his eyes
+resolutely; he breathed with exact precision; he even counted an
+imaginary flock of sheep as they passed sedately between two
+supposititious hurdles. He remained broadly awake, his eyes rebelling
+against their imprisonment till at last he gave up trying to coerce
+them. He searched his pocket, found tobacco and a pipe, and smoked. His
+brain became suddenly active.
+
+He reviewed the circumstances of the last few days. He debated his
+position, appraised his progress. It was typical of his temperament
+equability that he did this; it was part of the dogged resolution with
+which he approached the vital problems of his career. He knew that for
+the first time he had encountered passion, and that it had mastered him.
+He had seen Claire Van Arlen perhaps half a dozen times before he
+realized this, and realized it, too, with a certain ingenuous wonder at
+the thing which had such power over him. But he had made no attempt to
+combat it. He knew that this girl had become for him the pivot of
+existence. As matters had gone, he had scarcely had the opportunity for
+introspection. Passion had gripped him, and now passion's authority had
+gone beyond the limits of question. He set his face unswervingly towards
+his goal. The days of debating an alternative path had gone by.
+
+He sighed. Up the path he had chosen had he made any progress? Yes, one
+great step had been taken. She knew the goal he sought; he had made it
+absolutely plain. He had read repulse in her eyes as she first divined
+it. He had read it again, but tinged with a thrill of curiosity, at his
+second allusion. The third time? There he was beaten. She had seemed to
+fling him a sort of encouragement. Why? What was her intention here? She
+had not softened towards him; instinct told him that. And yet--and yet.
+He sighed again. There were many barriers in this road he had set out
+upon--barriers which must be levelled one by one. Dislike, suspicion,
+but not, thank God, apathy. No--from the first he had interested
+her--from the moment of their first meeting he had been forced into
+prominence in her regard.
+
+A hand fell lightly upon his shoulder, bringing him back with a start
+from the possibilities of romance to the facts of an everyday African
+world. The most engrossing of these, for the moment, was Daoud's face.
+
+There was a sense of importance in the Moor's aspect, the importance of
+discovery. Aylmer realized this at once.
+
+"You have discovered--what?" he asked sharply.
+
+Daoud waved his hand with a magnificent and comprehensive gesture.
+
+"All, Sidi," he answered. "The two we seek, with the child, are in an
+encampment of Berber tribesmen within an hour's march."
+
+Aylmer scrambled to his feet. He made but little noise as he did so, but
+there was a corresponding movement in the half-dozen recumbent figures
+beside him. Perinaud, raising himself upon his elbow, looked
+thoughtfully at the scout.
+
+"Well, my friend?" he asked amiably. "Your researches take us where?"
+
+"Five miles further up the ravine," said Daoud. "It is more than a camp.
+A village of some importance. Our friend who escaped from the broom
+thicket has not arrived there. There was no alertness, no watch kept. By
+the time I left snores were echoing from practically every tent and
+dwelling of mud. We are not expected."
+
+Perinaud nodded.
+
+"_Bien._ The moment of attack then--?"
+
+"Is now, Sidi. By the time we reach it the dawn will have come."
+
+Aylmer fumbled for his watch. It was true. The hour was between four and
+five. The wan light of the false morning was, indeed, faintly paling the
+east. He looked at Perinaud.
+
+The sergeant nodded.
+
+"Short rest for the horses, Monsieur," he said, "but that we cannot
+help. The time is short enough, as it is."
+
+He motioned the waiting figures of the Goumiers into activity. The
+sentries were recalled. A tiny fire was kindled, and coffee made with
+incredible quickness while the saddles were being flung upon the horses'
+backs.
+
+Aylmer gulped his portion gratefully, for the dew-brimmed air was chill.
+But within twenty minutes of Daoud's return, the half score of horsemen
+were following him in single file along the river bank.
+
+Progress was slow, the path imperceptible or devious. The light of
+morning was no longer yellow, but alive with the rose red of sunrise as
+they halted, at a gesture from their leader, and gazed between the
+trunks of a grove of palms.
+
+White against the green of crops a dozen houses lined the edge of an
+oval space, which some winter floods of bygone years had hewn deep in
+the surrounding alluvial soil. The forest thickets grew up to the fringe
+of the arable land, divided from it by hedges of cactus. Between the
+house and the river was an encampment of brown, dilapidated tents. The
+land immediately in front of these was bare and open, as if some
+ceaseless traffic had beaten all vegetation down. On an eminence stood a
+lime-washed, dome-topped shrine.
+
+"If possible, we should surround and examine each house or tent in
+silence, and one by one," suggested Daoud.
+
+"A matter of hours," said Perinaud. "No, let our men form rank where
+their rifles command each doorway, and I will see to the summoning of
+the inhabitants. For the moment, softly. Keep your horses off the rock,
+but avoid the thickest of the jungle. Show judgment, my children, show
+judgment!"
+
+He finished with a little oath of surprise. For almost at his horse's
+feet, or, at the furthest, a bare five yards from him, a man had
+suddenly risen from a thicket--a man clad in a dirty _djelab_, who
+viewed the sitting horsemen with every sign of amazement and sudden
+panic. In another moment, and with a shrill cry, he had darted through
+the palm grove and was flying across the crop lands, straight towards
+the line of silent tents.
+
+Perinaud struck spurs into his stallion.
+
+"Take him!" he cried, and his voice had a queer note of exasperation as
+he tried to make it vehement and yet hold it below the level of a shout.
+He led the charge which raced across the herbage. Aylmer, carried away
+by the sudden infection of repressed excitement, thundered at his side.
+The dark spot of brown made by the _djelab_ of the fugitive seemed, for
+the moment, to comprehend all that was vital in existence. He must not
+reach the tents, he must not give the alarm. Although he was a matter of
+fifty yards or more behind his quarry, owing to the start the runner had
+gained by the intervening palms, Aylmer began to lean forward in the
+saddle, to thrust out his arm, feel a tenseness, a twitching in his
+fingers as if he already grasped the hood of the garment which rose and
+fell with its owner's every stride.
+
+A yell burst from Perinaud's lips--a yell of rage and warning!
+
+"A trap!" he cried. "The silos! The silos! Pull wide! Pull wide!"
+
+Aylmer heard a crash. A Goumier on his right seemed to have been
+swallowed with his horse into the very earth. He gripped his own rein,
+moved by a sudden and imperfectly comprehended pulse of fear, and
+wrenched at his bridle. His horse fought under the strain, made a
+half-hearted attempt to halt, and was carried by mere impetus another
+fifty yards. There came another crash; another Goumier's horse
+disappeared, while the man, spilled from the saddle, rolled over a dozen
+times across the hardened flat. Perinaud's stallion, its eyes wild, its
+nostrils round with terror, spread out its legs and skated forward to
+the very brink of--what?
+
+A huge round hole, beneath which was darkness only. Aylmer saw it, saw
+that he himself must reach it, and comprehended as in a flash the
+sergeant's cry.
+
+The silos!
+
+Even his narrow experience of things Moroquin had taught him what the
+word meant. They were the underground grain cellars of the villagers,
+sunk in the earth, unfenced, often coverless, and, as now, open traps
+for the unwary. The thought and the flash of apprehension which it
+kindled added force to the grip with which he tore at the reins.
+
+Too late!
+
+His realization of the hideous fall which was inevitable was swift as a
+lightning flash, and yet at the same time the thing itself seemed to
+arrive with a horrible deliberation. His thews were tense, his knees
+clutched the saddle. And then, and the feeling was as if he watched for
+the culmination of a well-understood and expected movement of familiar
+machinery--his horse's feet slid grudgingly over the edge. The black
+hole in the earth rose instantly--rose and sucked him down. There was a
+shock and then night fell--a night impenetrable.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+ONE SIDE OF A BARGAIN
+
+
+"It's the pig man," said a childish voice. "The man what lifted me out
+of the way of the boar."
+
+Aylmer blinked. Himself in the shadow, he was aware of a figure opposite
+him in the center of a circle of light. He lay, apparently, in a
+circular and unfurnished room, lit by an unglazed skylight alone. The
+figure, which sat cross-legged on a lump which his returning senses
+discovered to be a dead horse, wore the white _haik_ and the bournous of
+a Moor. The hood was drawn back, showing bronzed aquiline features and a
+brown beard, but the man's eyes were blue. Aylmer studied the face with
+a feeling of bewilderment which gradually became irritation. He was
+stunned, but consciousness had so far returned that he knew himself
+stunned, and knew, also, that his brain was confronting a problem which
+his normal powers would have grappled with easily. He ought to be able
+to recognize his visitor; there was familiarity, there was recognition
+in the man's sneering smile. And yet, who was he? Aylmer moved
+restlessly, petulantly. An excruciating pang leaped up through his
+shoulder and made him gasp. The man shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Dislocated, I fear," he said in level English accents. "And the
+collar-bone most certainly fractured."
+
+Aylmer's ear served him where his eyes had failed. The voice was
+Landon's. It was his cousin who sat opposite him, smiling evilly from
+the shadow of the _haik_.
+
+Something touched the wounded shoulder lightly, but not so lightly but
+that Aylmer winced again.
+
+"Poor--poor!" said the childish voice again commiseratingly. "Is it
+badly hurted? When I fell off my pony they rubbed me wiv butter."
+
+It was his little namesake, swaddled in white flowing garments, who
+stood at his elbow, peering into his face with anxious eyes.
+
+Aylmer pulled himself into a sitting position, not without intense pain.
+But the throb of his wounded arm seemed to awake his dulled
+consciousness. He looked from father to son without bewilderment. His
+understanding had fully regained command of the situation.
+
+His first action was typical of the man; he fumbled with his left hand
+at his holster.
+
+Landon laughed.
+
+"Empty, my dear John," he said. "Fogs, gales, the menacing hand of
+nature I do not pretend to have my remedy for. But I retain the
+common-sense which deprives my enemy of a weapon, when opportunity is my
+friend."
+
+Aylmer was still silent. Landon gave a self-satisfied little nod of the
+head, a little motion which implied the insolence of triumph fully
+enjoyed.
+
+"And by opportunity, please understand that I do not refer to mere
+chance," he went on. "The little _ruse de guerre_ by which you and your
+associates were drawn into this trap was the product of an active brain,
+not mine, I grieve to say. A friend who has seen much of desert
+bickerings did not invent but adapted it. I don't think many of your
+beautiful Goumiers escaped him and his allies."
+
+There was something more than disgust and repulsion in the glance with
+which Aylmer regarded his cousin. It was, perhaps, wonder.
+
+"Libertine--blackmailer--spy--and thief--you have proved yourself all of
+these within the space of half a dozen years," he said quietly. "And
+now, traitor, and, I suppose, assassin. It puzzles me. Clean living
+isn't so hard, and yet, you have never tried it, never!"
+
+A queer line showed in Landon's cheek, as his lips tightened against
+each other. And then he laughed again--a harsh, unconvincing little
+laugh.
+
+"Is the first line of attack an appeal to my better nature?" he asked.
+"Omit it, my friend. However good your aim, you cannot reach a target
+which, to be frank, is non-existent. Appeals to my self-interest find me
+alert, but to my conscience, chill as ice. We may chaffer, you and I,
+but on strictly business lines."
+
+He settled himself back upon the dead horse's shoulder, pulled out a
+silver case, and selected a cigarette. He lit it, talking slowly,
+between puffs.
+
+"My apparently unkinsmanlike conduct in offering no attention to your
+wound is easily explained. It is a small matter, involved in far larger
+issues. If you meet my terms, our limited resources in that and other
+matters will be at your service. If not--" He shrugged his shoulders
+placidly. "Well, I do not suppose a prison governor pays attention to
+the condemned's complaints of his breakfast egg on the morning of
+execution."
+
+He moved, leaning forward at last, his elbows on his knees, his palms
+supporting his chin. And he looked down at Aylmer malignantly.
+
+"And I have you here to make or break as I will," he said. "By God!
+Opportunity doesn't call me twice. I clutch her!"
+
+The child turned with a little start, looking at his father with puzzled
+but not apprehensive eyes. The note of malice in that voice was
+evidently strange to him, and Aylmer, as he understood this fact,
+breathed a tiny sigh of relief. The child, at any rate, did not suffer
+ill-treatment.
+
+Landon saw the motion and his features relaxed into something like
+affection.
+
+He held out his hands.
+
+"Come here, my son," he said. "Go and find Muhammed."
+
+As the child ran forward, he caught him deftly and without a pause of
+energy tossed him up and out into the sunlight. Aylmer heard the boy's
+cry of welcome and laugh of delight, as his footsteps pattered over the
+roof of the cellar and were lost. Muhammed, whoever that might be, was
+evidently not far away.
+
+His father settled down upon his seat again.
+
+"That," he said, with an upward jerk of the shoulder towards the opening
+above his head, "that is one of the things I have been robbed of. Also
+my comfort, my credit, my security, my ease. I have had to endure
+unpleasantness. I have had to descend, though as a mental exercise I do
+not count it a descent, to crime. Life, in fact, has been difficult for
+me lately, owing to the action of certain people--with whom you appear
+to have allied yourself. You and they have to get matters in a different
+perspective. Your efforts in future must be for, not against, me. They
+must, indeed, be directed to effacing unfortunate circumstances in the
+past which are detrimental to my well-being. That must be fully
+understood before we even begin to talk of terms."
+
+He looked up at Aylmer with a sudden quick, speculative flash of the
+eyes. The other met it steadily and equably.
+
+"Have we begun--to discuss terms?" he asked.
+
+"No!" Landon snapped the monosyllable with contemptuous emphasis. "No! I
+don't discuss them, let me tell you. I make them!"
+
+Aylmer met the announcement with a smile.
+
+"Ah," he said quietly, and something in his tone seemed to whip Landon's
+restrained spite over the border-line of fury.
+
+"Damn you!" he cried, "do you think I can't and won't humble the lot of
+you; do you think I'm to be robbed of the winning ace now, when I've got
+it in my hand? I tell you there isn't a thing in me you can appeal to.
+I've shunted notions; I'm out for the stuff; I'm in business for myself,
+for me!"
+
+He swayed to and fro upon the carcase, his face livid, his fingers
+unconsciously twining and plaiting the dead animal's mane. His teeth
+flashed, attracting, as it were, the core of the little light which
+reached the gloom--attracting it to intensify his fierce animal fury.
+For, as he swayed, and swore, the teeth shone behind his red lips like
+the fangs of a cornered wolf.
+
+And then, suddenly, darkly, the emotion was planed from his face. His
+features became mask-like in their imperturbability.
+
+"You had better listen carefully," he said. "First, I keep the boy. That
+goes without saying. I've got him. Secondly, they give me their
+engagement under bond not to molest me in my possession of him if I
+choose to visit America or England, or even if I marry again. Thirdly,
+old man Van Arlen pays me ten thousand pounds--pounds, mind, not
+dollars--within a week from now, and on the same date every year.
+Fourthly, you explain away the matter of the book I borrowed from your
+library. Explain it as you like; say I was drunk or insane or any sort
+of lie which suits you best. You'll have to give me your word of honor
+to do your best about that; I'll take it, because I know you believe in
+these shibboleths. Lastly, they're to keep quiet while I have a free
+hand with Despard."
+
+Aylmer gave an involuntary start, and Landon snarled--there is no other
+word for it--with savage rage.
+
+"By God, they've got to stand by and see me break him! He's hunted me
+through the courts and through the press of two hemispheres. He shall
+have his turn. Not all in a moment, either. A word here and a word
+there. A paragraph or two where they can't well be missed. Then rumors,
+and then a circumstantial story. Rush him into action and then, slowly,
+thoroughly, and perfectly plainly, bowl him out. Eh, that will be the
+gilded roof on the whole thing. Despard down in the mud--Despard ...
+broken!"
+
+His fingers ceased their wandering. He sat motionless, his eyes staring
+gloatingly into the gloom over Aylmer's head. It was as if he saw
+visions of evil triumph limned upon the walls.
+
+Aylmer lay very still. The sense of inertia which had been overpowering
+when consciousness first revived was passing away. His brain was clear.
+He realized that for all practical purposes he was in the hands of a
+madman, or of a man so far enthralled by a very possession of wickedness
+that he might be reckoned insane. There was nothing to do but await
+events.
+
+Landon dropped his eyes.
+
+"Do you see?" he asked. "That's your job. To go to them and tell them.
+Do you understand?"
+
+Aylmer shook his head.
+
+"I hear your price--for what?" he asked. "It's a one-sided bargain, so
+far."
+
+"The goods that I have to deliver," said Landon, slowly, "are what I put
+safely out of your way a moment ago. That boy's health, and mental
+and--moral, too, if you like--strength. Do you get the notion?"
+
+For a moment the silence remained unbroken. Then Aylmer spoke.
+
+"You devil!" he said slowly. "You incarnate fiend!"
+
+Landon laughed again, with complacent satisfaction.
+
+"You do get the notion," he said. "Let your mind dwell upon it, give it
+deliberation. I sha'n't kill the boy, oh, not for a long time. I shall
+keep him alive; he'll even enjoy the process. I'll bring him up
+carefully, very carefully. There isn't a form of life as I've seen it
+that he sha'n't be familiar with. You may hunt me from England; you may
+make it hot for me in Europe and America. There are plenty of lively
+resorts in this good old continent of Africa which will amply fulfill my
+purpose. I'll put him through the mill; I'll begin early, too. I sha'n't
+leave much to luck. If by any chance you brought about my death, and I
+credit you with grit enough to attempt it, you'll find the kid
+well-grounded. He shall be his father's son, and a bit more. I hadn't
+the advantages he's going to have."
+
+The flush of anger which had mounted to Aylmer's face was gone now. He
+looked at Landon keenly, indeed, but with more curiosity than wrath.
+His voice was quite controlled.
+
+"And in the alternative?" he asked. "In any case you keep him. What do
+we gain by meeting your terms?"
+
+Landon shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"He has his chance, then, against the World, the Flesh and the Devil
+with the rest of them. I sha'n't pose as a saint before him, but I'll
+see that he behaves himself decently and plays the game. He'll go to
+Eton and Balliol, if he has the sense. I sha'n't send him to
+Sunday-school but he'll attend church on Sundays--once. I'll choose his
+tailor and put him in the way of things. He'll learn, in fact, how to
+conduct himself as an ordinary English gentleman."
+
+Aylmer nodded.
+
+"From whom?" he asked quietly.
+
+And then Landon flinched. The eyes which had been bent on his cousin
+with eagerness, with greed alight in them, quivered. He gave a little
+intake of the breath.
+
+"You cursed prig!" he breathed thickly. "You cursed prig!"
+
+Aylmer smiled.
+
+"You've been out of it too long, Landon," he said. "For over a year I
+suppose your only familiars have been Bowery ruffians or Soho
+blackmailers. Did you think this could be done? Did you really make
+yourself believe that I was likely to be an easy intermediary for such a
+proposition? And I imagine that you forget that it was entirely for your
+wife's sake that your father-in-law dealt gently with you during your
+married life. There's no need for any restraint in that quarter now."
+
+Landon made a gesture of contempt.
+
+"Are you making threats for that old tame cat?" he sneered.
+
+"He's got claws that will reach out to scratch you at the world's end,
+my amiable cousin. They're made of dollars. And they'll be sharpened
+with American grit. Uncommon unpleasant, you'll find them."
+
+Landon snapped his fingers.
+
+"That for his dollars and his grit!" he cried. "It's no good raising
+your bluff on me. I'll see you every time, see you and take it! Leave it
+out; don't waste time over it. Are you going to carry my message to
+them, or are you not?"
+
+"No," said Aylmer. "You knew perfectly well what my answer was going to
+be, but if it's any satisfaction to you to have it--No!"
+
+Landon leaned forward.
+
+"I guessed what your high falutin' ideas would answer," he said, "but
+I'm talking to you--to you about yourself." He pointed to the well-like
+opening above his head. "Do you believe that you could climb out of
+there with a broken collar-bone?" he asked.
+
+Aylmer glanced quickly in the direction of the extended finger.
+
+"Perhaps not," he answered.
+
+Landon nodded.
+
+"You don't know what superhuman exertions a man will contrive when he is
+perishing--of thirst," he said. "But even he couldn't move the slab of
+stone which ten men will drag over that opening, if I bid them. And that
+will be now, if you don't come off your high horse. This isn't a healthy
+place for my friends of the Beni M'Geel. We have to be moving on
+immediately."
+
+A sudden quiver that perhaps was nearly akin to fear pulsed up into
+Aylmer's brain, showed, indeed, in his eyes. The fever of his wound was
+already upon him; his lips were parched, his tongue swollen. To be left
+in that pit--to be sealed in--to die?
+
+Landon grinned.
+
+"Eh?" he questioned. "Are second thoughts best? Do you begin to
+understand?"
+
+For a moment or two the stillness remained unbroken, and in Aylmer's
+gaze there was little still but wonder--wonder that things like Landon
+should continue to exist in this prosy work-a-day world of ours.
+Opportunities for unleashing a real lust of cruelty and evil come to few
+of us. We argue therefore that they do not occur. A common error. A
+glance at the pages of half a dozen reports of philanthropic societies
+will refute it, but we, who are not engaged in social reform, are lost
+in amazement at the monsters when we meet them. It was incredulity which
+was in Aylmer's mind, and incredulity Landon imagined to be
+deliberation.
+
+"There are no two ways to it!" he cried sharply. "Don't think that. It's
+yes or no, now and here!"
+
+Aylmer made a wearily contemptuous gesture.
+
+"Haven't you had your answer?" he said. "It's no; it would be no if I
+had a thousand chances to say it--no--no--no!"
+
+Landon rose. He looked down at the man at his feet malignantly,
+suspiciously. He shouted in Spanish to some unseen listener outside. The
+end of a rope was dropped down through the opening. Methodically Landon
+knotted it about the dead horse's neck and forelegs.
+
+"No, my friend," he said, as if in answer to some unspoken question,
+"you aren't going to exist by munching this dead brute's flesh or
+sucking its blood till help comes, if it comes at all. You are going to
+be left in here with no more company than your own obstinacy, alone."
+
+He shouted again. The rope tautened. Landon seized it, and with a couple
+of energetic jerks swung himself up into the sunshine. And then the
+carcase rose, dragged a little on the floor, and in its turn was hauled
+out of sight. The cellar loomed larger, gloomier, emptier when it was
+gone. There was another dragging sound. Half the light which filtered
+through the opening was eclipsed.
+
+Landon's voice rang hollow in the underground echoes.
+
+"Is it no, still, you fool?" he snarled.
+
+There was no answer.
+
+With a curse, Landon made a significant motion of the hand. The brawny
+Arab shoulders were bent and their thews tightened. The great slab slid
+into its appointed place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+PERINAUD'S NEWS
+
+
+A full mile out in the offing _The Morning Star_ swung at her anchorage,
+dipping and swerving lazily over the incoming rush of the Atlantic
+swell. The dawn-light was soft behind the white bastions of the town's
+sea-wall; the harsh glare of the fully risen sun was yet to come. A
+little boat put out from the shore, zigzagging across the wide lake
+which is bounded on the south by the headland and on the north and west
+by the ring of transports, merchantmen, and cuirassés of the French
+Marine. She tacked and came about at short intervals as if those who
+sailed her had need of haste, or at any rate of the distraction of
+attempting speed even if it could not be attained. She sidled, at last,
+towards the yacht's companion ladder.
+
+Claire Van Arlen rose from her deck chair as the boat's sail dropped.
+She walked towards the taffrail and looked down. She had used her
+binoculars upon the little craft ever since its start from the shore,
+and had finally recognized Daoud. His companion, a uniformed man, whose
+long limbs seemed to occupy the whole of the space between stern and
+stem, had his head swathed in bandages.
+
+Daoud was the first to scramble aboard. He stood before her with bent
+shoulders, the picture of dejection.
+
+She breathed a little quickly.
+
+"Yes?" she asked. "You have brought news--of what?"
+
+The tall man swung himself off the ladder, drew himself upright, and
+saluted.
+
+"Mademoiselle, I am Sergeant Perinaud, attached to the office of the
+military police here. I attended M. Aylmer during our ride in pursuit of
+the man named Landon, who was escaping with certain desert knaves of the
+Beni M'Geel. We overtook them--"
+
+[Illustration: "_Mademoiselle, I am Sergeant Perinaud_"]
+
+She interrupted with an exclamation of delight.
+
+"You have the boy?" she cried. "You recovered him?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"No, Mademoiselle. We were betrayed into an unfortunate ambush. We lost
+five men out of ten in addition to further losses at an earlier date in
+the proceedings. Monsieur le Capitaine has been badly hurt."
+
+He looked at her keenly with a sort of speculative curiosity. And Daoud
+frowned. For there was no sign of commiseration in her glance. She
+showed annoyance, almost disgust.
+
+"You had your hands upon these men and they escaped you?" she cried.
+
+"We were within a very little of arresting them, Mademoiselle, but by an
+Arab trick in which I regret to say they showed more intelligence than
+we were capable of divining, they defeated us. I am directed by Major
+d'Hubert to report to you fully on the incident if you desire it."
+
+She made a vehement gesture.
+
+"If!" she cried. "If!"
+
+With an accession of woodenness in his demeanor, the sergeant drew
+himself up yet more stiffly, repeated his salute, and in a few precise
+words gave the story of the pursuit. But, as he described Aylmer's fall,
+it was to be noted that his voice and bearing relaxed. A tinge of the
+dramatic colored his level tones. His eyes--his hands were called upon
+to emphasize the description of the headlong plunge into the black trap
+of the silo--indicated the feelings of an onlooker rather than a mere
+reporter, as he described the sealing of the prison mouth. And as she
+listened, she gave a little gasp. In the background Daoud flung his
+colleague a little nod of approval.
+
+"And then?" she asked breathlessly. "And then?"
+
+"I was unhorsed, Mademoiselle, and somewhat beaten about the head, as is
+evident. I found shelter in a neighboring patch of mallow, where, after
+a season, I was joined by my friend here. The Beni M'Geel having
+departed, we watched their route as a matter of precaution for a mile or
+two, and then returned. We were unable to deal with the slab upon the
+cellar mouth."
+
+This time his voice had been level enough, but he made his pause
+effective.
+
+She gasped again.
+
+"You left him there?"
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Yes, Mademoiselle, but not without rendering him assistance. Not being
+able to remove the stone, we merely dug another entrance. The outer
+earth was hard and baked, but after pecking off a few inches with our
+knives we fetched water from the river and easily softened it. We
+fashioned a couple of wooden shovels. Thus we dug down into the prison
+in an hour or two. We found the captain delirious."
+
+"Yes?" she said again, eagerly. "You brought him away?"
+
+"Mademoiselle forgets that we had no horses. Daoud remained with him. I
+walked to our nearest outpost--at Ain Djemma--to fetch assistance."
+
+His tones were absolutely matter of fact, but some instinct of
+comprehension made her look at him yet more keenly and thus note the
+weariness which his voice could hide, but not his drawn features.
+
+"You walked, how far?" she questioned.
+
+"I have no exact idea, Mademoiselle. For some hours. I could not obtain
+a surgeon; there was but one at the post and his hands were full. An
+orderly of the ambulance came with me with a _cacolet_ and a small
+escort of Chasseurs. But we have not dared to remove the captain, whose
+fever has reached a serious height. The orderly advised that I should
+come direct to the town and obtain either medical help, or, if possible,
+one of the _Dames de la Croix Rouge_. But there is an epidemic of fever
+at the hospital and an influx of wounded from the Tirailleurs' foray of
+four days back. Neither surgeon nor nurse can be spared for one man."
+
+For a moment there was silence again. Perinaud looked at her with a sort
+of questioning apathy, with the detached air of one having done his duty
+and awaiting the decrees of fate. But Daoud moved restlessly, and then
+broke into speech, as if some irresistible impulse moved him.
+
+"I think my master is likely to die, Mademoiselle," he said.
+
+And then he, too, waited, in a sort of queer, hushed expectancy, as if
+his words must result in some definite action.
+
+"We have medical comforts on board," she said quickly. "We will put
+anything we possess at Captain Aylmer's service."
+
+Perinaud nodded again solemnly.
+
+"The dislocated shoulder has been dealt with, Mademoiselle, and the
+broken bone set. The orderly, also, has quinine for the fever, which is
+high. We might be doing right, perhaps, in taking back any other
+remedies which your intelligence can suggest."
+
+His tone was meditative and judicial, and intimated quite distinctly
+that this was a side issue and not the objective of his present mission.
+He continued to stare at her steadily, without any tinge of offence, but
+with a questioning directness which spoke volumes. "I am waiting," it
+seemed to say. "I have given you your cue. Speak your part."
+
+She looked from him to the Moor, read the same message in the latter's
+air of anticipation, and then spoke, desperately.
+
+"What is it?" she demanded. "You want--something?"
+
+The man looked not exactly embarrassed but disconcerted, surprised. His
+eyebrows rose a fraction, he flashed a swiftly inquiring glance at the
+Moor. The other nodded.
+
+"The captain's fever and delirium is very great, Mademoiselle," he said
+slowly. "We thought--" He hesitated. "The captain, in his wanderings,
+used your name frequently."
+
+She understood in a moment. Aylmer, in his fevered unconsciousness,
+had--what had he done? Placed himself, and her, in a false position?
+These stolid, unimaginative men, at any rate, regarded her as his
+fiancée! She was not eager, vehement, to rush to her lover's side! No
+wonder they showed astonishment.
+
+She stood silent, perturbed, at a loss. And the two impassive faces
+watched her. And again a tiny spasm of fear throbbed through her. Fate
+was fighting for this man, it seemed. Helpless, unconscious, cast away
+in this rat-hole in the wilderness, his plight worked for him where his
+own powers could not. His very helplessness appealed to her. Could she
+refuse the duty which was being plainly forced upon her by the mute
+message of those four watching eyes? Her imagination began to work. She
+saw a gloomy pit, a white face wasted with fever, heard a voice which,
+unconsciously, perhaps, but still appealingly, called upon her name. And
+this was the debonair soldier who had ridden out three days before to
+do--what? Her bidding, no less. A flush rose to her brow.
+
+"I have not a nurse's training," she assured Perinaud quietly, "but I
+will come with you, if you will wait."
+
+The sergeant saluted.
+
+"At Mademoiselle's service," he said placidly, and then turned towards
+his colleague and sighed, a deep suspiration eloquent of relief.
+
+At the door of the saloon she hesitated. She could see her father at his
+desk, bent over his papers, writing methodically. A sudden irritated
+sense of shyness fell upon her. Surely he, too, could not misunderstand.
+
+He looked round at her entrance. Without preamble she repeated the
+sergeant's report, speaking in level, matter of fact tones. She
+announced her decision to return with Perinaud and his escort.
+
+Her father's first comment was no more than his usual deferential little
+nod. But there was a slightly strained silence between them as she
+finished speaking--a silence which gave him time for reflection.
+
+"You think your presence necessary, likely to benefit him?" he said
+questioningly.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"He has been wounded in our service," she said. "These men seem to
+expect much of my nursing--I who have never nursed. I hardly see a way
+to refuse graciously."
+
+Again her father made his little obeisance of assent.
+
+"I could charge myself with an explanation," he said gravely. "There is
+no reason for you to go against your wishes. I fear there is little
+prospect of our being of real help."
+
+Then a sudden throb of protest surged up in her. The vision of the dark
+cellar and of the fevered lips which called constantly upon her name
+became vivid, more vivid than before. To her own amazement she realized
+that she wanted to go, that the thought of those two horsemen riding out
+into the wild with their message of repulse had become abhorrent to her.
+She felt suddenly pitying, protective. The feminine, indeed, the
+maternal, instinct gripped her.
+
+The blood rose to her cheeks.
+
+"I should prefer to go," she said quietly.
+
+Van Arlen made a little gesture of finality.
+
+"The sooner, then, the better," he said, and moved briskly towards his
+own cabin, summoning the steward to his councils as he went.
+
+The dusk was falling over them with grateful coolness as, eight hours
+later, they rode over the brink of the gorge and saw below them the
+black spectral shape of camel's-hair tents and the white dwellings of
+the _duar_. A lantern newly lit twinkled a welcome. A stallion neighed a
+greeting from his pickets as he heard the sound of advancing hoofs, and
+a couple of men in white uniform came to the door of a white-domed hovel
+and stood awaiting them.
+
+One, a dapper, black-moustached little man with the Geneva Cross upon
+his sleeve, hastened to help Miss Van Arlen to alight.
+
+"Monsieur sleeps, Mademoiselle," he informed her, as she reached the
+ground. "It is a matter of temperatures--and the subsequent weakness.
+Mademoiselle may have good hope that matters will yet go well."
+
+His smile was reassuring and, in spite of his obvious youth, almost
+paternal. At the tent door he turned and laid his finger upon his lips.
+There must be no feminine want of self-restraint, he implied. The sight
+of one dear to her in his hour of helplessness must not leave her
+unstrung. She must be brave.
+
+She followed with her father into the shadows within.
+
+He lay with his arms outflung. A light coverlet was over him, but the
+damp of perspiration gleamed upon his forehead and neck. He moved
+restlessly, breathing with a panting sound.
+
+"We poise much on Monsieur's recognition of Mademoiselle when he wakes,"
+explained the orderly, and offered a smirk of intelligent sympathy to
+Mademoiselle's father.
+
+She looked down, and a strange sense of unreality in the situation
+seized her. The white, fever-stricken face on the pillow seemed a
+spectre--a caricature of something familiar. A queer sense of anger, as
+if some well-liked possession had been meddled with and defaced by
+outsiders, rose in her heart. An instinct which she could not explain
+set her kneeling beside the pallet bed, her eyes fixed on its occupant.
+
+Wearily, drowsily, Aylmer opened his eyes.
+
+And then his smile dawned, slowly, incredulously, till the glory of
+assurance had become convincing. He pronounced her name.
+
+In the background, emotional thrills travelled across the orderly's
+foolishly sentimental countenance. He took mental notes of a situation
+which bulked largely and enticingly in a letter to an apple-cheeked
+damsel in far-away Provence a few days later. "Such are the rewards of
+the soldier, my soul," he explained. "Love? Its cords are strong to drag
+its devotees even across this waste wilderness of Africa!" Wherein he
+did one of the most fertile lands upon the habitable globe a vile
+injustice. But your true lover is invariably a poet and girdled with
+merely a poet's limitations, while the apple-cheeked demoiselle's
+romantic sensibilities were quickened to the point of tears.
+
+Mr. Van Arlen moved forward to his daughter's side with a suddenly
+instinctive motion. And she understood it. The embarrassment of the
+situation had at once become plain to him; his desire was to clear it,
+he was framing words--courteous, no doubt, but without any trace of
+sentiment--to assist her in this. He would do it admirably; his tact was
+beyond question.
+
+And she?
+
+Again she felt a sudden thrill of protest. No, how could they deal
+coldly with this man, now? It would be less than womanly--would it even
+be common fair play? He was down. Surely till he was up again, the
+indomitable soldier she knew and feared, honor forbade their striking
+even at his self-assurance.
+
+Her hand was laid upon her father's arm, pressing it in gentle
+remonstrance. Then she leaned towards the bed.
+
+"We have come to thank you," she said quietly. "You have suffered much
+for us, too much."
+
+His smile was fading while she spoke.
+
+"I--I failed," he muttered. "I had my hands upon him, and failed."
+
+"Ah, but you mustn't think us unjust, always," she answered. "What you
+intended--that is what we look at. You have worked for us ceaselessly.
+And now you suffer for us. You must accept our gratitude for that."
+
+He shook his head slowly, and his gaze wandered past her to Van Arlen's
+face.
+
+"It is a check," he said slowly, "but only a check. He is not going to
+win." His eyes grew suddenly clear and his lips grim. "I shall follow
+him to the end," he said.
+
+The orderly moved forward and rearranged the coverlet. He looked
+significantly at a flush which had risen to Aylmer's cheek.
+
+"It is better that Monsieur should not excite himself," he explained
+amiably. "Mademoiselle is here; matters are going well. Monsieur will
+convalesce all the quicker if he avoids emotion."
+
+Aylmer pushed at the rearranged coverlet with a gesture of irritation.
+He drew himself into a sitting posture.
+
+"Don't think that I have flung up the sponge!" he cried. "Before, before
+this weakness came over me I arranged for the future. Daoud has seen to
+that; he has put matters in train. Landon will be watched--if necessary,
+followed. And when I am up again--" he smiled savagely--"when I take the
+trail for the second time, he will pay in full, as I promised he
+should."
+
+And his voice rang firm as he caught sight of the Moor silhouetted
+against the evening light at the tent door.
+
+"That is so?" he demanded. "You have seen to this among your friends?"
+
+Daoud came forward a couple of respectful paces.
+
+"Be assured, Sidi," he said, "that this man will not move a yard but I
+shall have due knowledge of it, in time. He cannot leave North Africa,
+and I be ignorant of it. Our hands may lag, but they will grip him at
+the last."
+
+Aylmer gave a little sigh of satisfaction and lay back. And his eyes
+rose to Van Arlen's half appealingly, half defiantly.
+
+"You see?" he said. "At any rate, I am doing--my best."
+
+The other bowed, but not his automatic, courteous little bow with which
+he punctuated his everyday conversation. There was a moisture in his
+eyes. He leaned forward and took the hand which moved restlessly across
+the coverlet.
+
+"If I had had a son," he said, "he could have done no more. Take my
+thanks, Captain Aylmer, for all that you are and have been; take them in
+full."
+
+Aylmer gave a little nod of content.
+
+"I'll take them," he smiled, "for what I have been to you, and that is
+less than nothing. But for what I am going to be--I'll earn them for
+that, earn them!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+AT MELILLA
+
+
+About the aspect of the port of Melilla there is only one thing wholly
+admirable. That is the curving bay which sweeps eastward from the town
+towards the frontier blockhouse. This last is an eyesore; the untethered
+camels which pasture in herds beside it have little attractiveness; the
+wide plateau which stretches up to the distant hills is desolate and
+often arid. But the bay is a perpetual delight. Curved like a scimitar,
+it shines in the sunlight as a tempered blade shines, ringed by white
+tresses of foam, banked by its parapets of sand.
+
+Two men sat in the shadow cast by a stranded boat and watched half a
+dozen Moors and Spaniards who bent their shoulders and swelled out their
+muscles to haul at a couple of ropes. The ropes slanted down to and were
+lost in the rush of the breakers. Those who dragged at them panted, the
+perspiration raining off their faces. The men who sat and watched seemed
+to find a whet to the enjoyment of their siesta in reviewing so much
+energy. One of them sighed--a contented little sigh, drew a cigarette
+from the breast of his _djelab_, lit it, and began to smoke with stolid
+satisfaction.
+
+A child who was sitting between the two rose suddenly and ran down the
+sand. The men at the ropes had come to a halt. They stood gasping,
+wiping their faces. Impulsively the child laid his little hands upon the
+rope and stood in an attitude of tension, ready to use his tiny
+strength when operations were resumed. The men welcomed him with a
+glance of good-humored toleration.
+
+The cigarette smoker laughed.
+
+"The restlessness of youth, Sidi. Repose? They have no knowledge of the
+meaning of the word, these children. Now I? The last three weeks have
+brimmed with such toil that I could sit here and contentedly drowse a
+week, a month, nay, a whole year, if Allah willed."
+
+The other nodded and stretched his limbs. The movement expressed the
+lethargy which is earned by fatigue.
+
+"To-night we shall eat real food," he murmured. "We shall sleep in beds
+of sorts. We can even be amused, if we find the _cafés chantants_ which
+attract these poor devils of Andalusian conscripts amusing. It's all a
+matter of contrasts--life. After the experiences we have endured among
+our friends the M'Geel, this doghole appears alluring. This!"
+
+He waved his hand with a significant gesture towards the town, in which
+the mean houses appear to hustle the citadel and the citadel the houses,
+without either the one or the other gaining advantage.
+
+The smoker blew out a cloud and spat towards the flagstaff which
+dominates the sea bastion.
+
+"May Allah relegate it and its inhabitants shortly to the Abyss!" he
+aspired devoutly. "Is it permitted to ask how long, Sidi, you purpose
+using its hospitalities?"
+
+"It is always permitted to ask, my friend. The answer is another matter.
+Bluntly, till the Gibraltar boat arrives."
+
+The other lifted his shoulders into a tiny shrug.
+
+"For the Sidi Jan this is a place not to be recommended. There is a
+smell, do you notice, especially at night--murk which rises from the
+fort ditch. And the vermin! His little skin is pitted with them!"
+
+Landon moved irritably. He looked at his son. The men at the ropes were
+hauling again by now, and the small back was bent and the little arms
+tautened with efforts to emulate them. The first few meshes of a laden
+net appeared above the surface of the breakers.
+
+Little John gave a squeal of delight, promptly deserted the toilers, and
+capered joyously down the beach. Scales began to shine silvern in the
+sun as the tangle of the nets rose slowly, but higher and yet higher.
+His voice rose in shrill outcry; he clapped his hands.
+
+As the great bag of the net was hauled little by little up the shelving
+beach, he flung himself into the hurtle round the wriggling catch. The
+mackerel were there in their hundreds--in their thousands. He tripped
+and fell into the center of the heap of fishes, wriggling as they
+wriggled, and to little more purpose.
+
+Muhammed rose, paced slowly forward, and plucked him into safety. But
+the child met his good offices with scorn.
+
+"I wish to help; I wish to gather them up!" he cried petulantly. "I am
+going to be a fisherman. I shall take the yacht to the fishing grounds
+and catch millions--millions!"
+
+"There must be a catching of a yacht first," said Muhammed, amiably.
+"Where wilt thou obtain it, little lord?"
+
+Little John Aylmer turned puzzled eyes up to his questioner. Then he
+wheeled and pointed eastward towards the anchorage below the headland.
+
+"It is there!" he explained. "Did he," he pointed towards his father,
+who still lay comfortably reclined in the shadow of the boat, "not send
+for it?"
+
+Muhammed's eyes followed the direction of the child's hand. He stared,
+gave a sudden startled exclamation, and stared again, incredulously. The
+next moment he was back at his employer's side, twitching excitedly at
+the folds of his bournous.
+
+"Sidi--Sidi!" he exclaimed. "While we drowse we are betrayed. Look!
+Look!"
+
+Landon scrambled to his feet and saw what the timbers of the shadowing
+boat had hidden before. A white vessel, drifting slowly in from the
+headland abreast the market quay. As he watched, a white spout of foam
+and the rattle of the hawse-pipes told that the anchor had been dropped.
+
+She rounded to, the American flag waving lazily from her stern, the
+burgee of the New York Yacht Club from her peak. They could not read her
+name across two miles of water, but they did not need to. It was _The
+Morning Star_.
+
+Landon went white beneath his tan. He swore.
+
+"We have been here three days--three days, by God! Not a soul in the
+place knows me or knows that I am not what I profess to be--a Moor from
+El Dibh. And yet--this! It can't be a coincidence. They know--somehow!"
+
+He looked at Muhammed in sudden fierce suspicion.
+
+"That infernal Jew of yours has sold us!" he cried.
+
+The Moor made a tolerant gesture, the sort of motion a nurse offers a
+wilful child.
+
+"Sidi! You do not understand. A Jew to sell me! Not this side of the
+Mediterranean. It means death! Yakoob knows it; it is knowledge that he
+has sucked in with his mother's milk, chewed with his daily bread, seen
+written in letters of blood in a score of towns between this and
+Mequinez. No, Yakoob Ihudi is not in this business. Some other is the
+instrument of--fate!"
+
+He stooped, lifted little John carefully in his arms, and nodded towards
+the town gate.
+
+"We must use haste, Sidi," he said calmly, avoiding the protests the
+child was making with his closed fists. "Show wisdom, little lord. Why
+do you not wish to return to the town, wherein are special delights for
+the eye in the booths of the market-place?"
+
+Landon hesitated. Then he joined the Moor, running. And the other was
+covering the ground with huge strides which forced his companion to
+continue the run to keep pace with him. He panted out a question.
+
+"My plan, Sidi?" returned the Moor. "It lies in the hands of Allah. Here
+when inquiry begins to be made, we are the mark of a hundred eyes. In
+Yakoob's hovel a means of escape may be found."
+
+The two reached the dusty road which leads from the drill ground,
+followed it into the shadows of the town gate, mounted the steep on
+which the citadel stands, and gained a row of squalid wooden hovels
+which fringed the rampart above the fort ditch. Into one of these they
+disappeared.
+
+A man looked up as they entered, a dark-skinned, low-browed Israelite,
+who greeted them with an obsequiously furtive air. He sat cross-legged
+upon a turned-up chest and plied his needle upon an exceedingly ragged
+pair of trousers. A heap of other garments lay at his elbow. His trade
+was evidently that of mending tailor.
+
+"This deposit for contraband of which you spoke last night?" asked
+Muhammed, without preamble. "Where is it?"
+
+The look of furtive expectancy in the tailor's eyes became active alarm.
+
+"What do you fear?" he asked shrilly. "A search? There are fifteen
+thousand cartridges awaiting transport."
+
+"The search will not be for those, but for these," said the Moor,
+pointing to Landon and his son. "And there is as great a ruin attached
+to the finding of the one as the other. You must prevent that."
+
+The Jew rose quickly and barred the door. With alert movements he
+gathered up the smoking ashes from the hearth and emptied them into a
+shallow pan. He covered his hand with a cloth, seized the pothook which
+hung from the entrance of the chimney, and moved it laboriously aside.
+As he did so the hearthstone moved slowly downwards as if on a hinge. A
+flight of steps led into the darkness.
+
+Muhammed indicated the opening with a shrug.
+
+"The best we can do, Sidi," he deprecated. "Till matters adjust
+themselves you must keep company with Yakoob's contraband."
+
+Landon shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Air?" he questioned laconically. "It is supplied--how?"
+
+Muhammed passed on the question. The Jew pointed to the bosom of his
+bournous, which rose and fell in the draught which rose from below.
+
+"There are innumerable crevices which open through the wall of the fort
+ditch," he said. "For this reason the Sidi must not use a light--at
+night."
+
+Landon shrugged his shoulders pessimistically, and took his son by the
+hand. "Come, my boy," he said. "We are going to play that childhood's
+favorite and most successful comedy--the Robbers in the Cave. You and I
+are to be the leaders of the gang."
+
+Little John peered doubtfully into the darkness.
+
+"And Muhammed?" he asked, looking at the Moor with expectant, trusting
+eyes.
+
+There was a queer intensity in the Moor's glance as he bent over the
+small figure hesitating at the head of the steps. His smile was kindly
+and reassuring.
+
+"I am the robber who goes abroad, prowling to find wicked rich men who
+deserve robbing," he said. "I return shortly, little lord. Have no
+fear."
+
+Little John nodded gravely and took his father's hand. The two paced
+solemnly down into the cellar. The hearthstone was replaced, the cinders
+set smoking upon it again. With a sigh Yakoob took up another deplorable
+pair of trousers and bit off a length of thread. Muhammed passed out
+into the street.
+
+Five minutes later he stood on the quayside, watching the motor launch
+which slid out of the shadow cast on the still waters by _The Morning
+Star_.
+
+Three figures sat upon the cushions at the stern, and Muhammed, as he
+watched them from under the hood of his _haik_, examined one of them
+with startled intensity. Miss Van Arlen he recognized. Aylmer, whose
+face was partially disguised by bandages, he debated over for a moment.
+But this third? This gray-clad elder? This was not the owner of _The
+Morning Star_. It was--whom?
+
+Surprise as much as relief erased the wrinkles from the watcher's face
+as the unknown stepped ashore, turned to assist his companion, and
+disclosed the features of the Moor's former employer, Mr. Miller.
+
+Muhammed emphasized his amazement with an oath. "One God!" he swore, and
+for a moment hesitated. Then, as the gray-clad man strolled past him,
+talking, the Moor pushed back the _haik_ which shadowed his face and met
+the other's glance squarely.
+
+Mr. Miller made no sign.
+
+Muhammed dropped back into the shadow of the quayside booths, and
+sauntered carelessly up the citadel ramp. The three preceded him. At the
+top of the ramp a causeway leads to the drawbridge which spans the fort
+ditch. Mr. Miller had apparently eyes for nothing but his fair
+companion. He failed to notice, at any rate, the dilapidated state of
+the iron rails which fence the bridge. The dust cloak he was carrying
+caught in a jagged piece of iron and was most unfortunately torn. A
+sudden appreciative gleam burned in Muhammed's eyes as he noted the
+incident. The _haik_ hood concealed a smile.
+
+He could not hear, but he could see the expressive pantomime which was
+accompanying Mr. Miller's apologies. He motioned his companions forward
+towards the bridge and the dark entrance through the casemate into the
+citadel. As for himself, his finger explained, he would return to the
+town and get the damage repaired. After a minute's discussion, matters
+followed the course indicated. Aylmer and Miss Van Arlen passed on--to
+seek the government offices, as Muhammed told himself, to interview the
+head, no doubt, of the military police.
+
+The Moor slid forward deferentially as the gray figure turned.
+
+"I can direct the Sidi to a _sastre_ of incredible skill," he explained.
+"The Sidi has no need to return to the town if he desires such an one.
+He is to be found within a hundred paces, if the Sidi so will."
+
+Mr. Miller made an affable gesture of acquiescence.
+
+"You are certainly quick to seize a business opportunity, my friend," he
+said amiably. "Lead on."
+
+Two minutes later the two stood behind Yakoob's well-barred door, and
+the hearthstone had been raised. Landon offered his visitor a tribute of
+surprise tinged with humor.
+
+"I understood, my friend," he said, as he took the other's hand, "that
+the mail came in from Gibraltar to-morrow. For you, it seems, the age of
+miracles is not past?"
+
+"I hope I am an alert servant of opportunity," said Miller. "I got your
+letter yesterday morning."
+
+"That does not entirely explain your presence in Melilla to-day."
+
+Miller nodded.
+
+"Your father-in-law has been anchored in Gibraltar Bay for the last
+fortnight. He has had information of your movements, my friend--good
+information, and I have not been able to determine the source of it. I
+made it my business to get introduced to him at the house of mutual
+friends. A humble client of mine, a ship's chandler, acquainted me with
+the fact that _The Morning Star's_ anchor and steam were being raised,
+and with the name of her port of destination. A couple of good boatmen
+and a little tact did the rest. I told Mr. Van Arlen that I had an
+urgent business necessity to visit these possessions of the King of
+Spain. Result--a warm invitation to anticipate the mail boat by a day."
+
+"Excellent!" commended Landon. "And the business necessity? You have
+brought the means of relieving it?"
+
+Mr. Miller dilated his nostrils. Perhaps the reek of the fort ditch
+reached him. Very carefully and methodically he lit a cigarette.
+
+"Yes--and no," he answered at last, and with deliberation. "I have money
+with me, my dear Lord Landon. But my employers give me no commission to
+apply it to--charity."
+
+Landon's eyes grew suddenly ominous.
+
+"The price of that book was to be five hundred pounds," he said. "I have
+received one hundred so far."
+
+Miller made a gesture of assent.
+
+"You obtained for me a certain book. Subsequent investigations proved it
+to be a mere dummy--a book made, in fact, to be stolen. You remain in my
+debt to the extent of that score of five-pound notes which I gave you."
+
+Landon laughed a dry little laugh.
+
+"Then I concede that I shall remain in your debt--permanently. The
+bungling is yours, not mine. I demand the balance of my fee. For
+suppose, my dear Miller, that I gave your game in Gibraltar away?"
+
+"Suppose you did," said Miller, placidly. "It would be a question of
+your word against mine, would it not?"
+
+There was nothing sneering in his tone, but its bald self-assurance
+seemed to whip Landon's temper into fury. He swore wickedly.
+
+Miller watched him as the weasel might be expected to watch the trapped
+rat. And the dark, unpleasant little room had, indeed, many of the
+attributes of a cage.
+
+And then there was an energetic gesture from the gray-clad arm.
+
+"You bungled the matter--not in stealing the wrong book," said Miller,
+"but in the manner of your escape. It was then that you lost your value
+to my employers. You are liable to be arrested in any of the British
+dominions. Till that matter is settled, you are a weapon without an
+edge, for us. That error must be repaired."
+
+Landon stared up at him curiously.
+
+"How?" he asked.
+
+Miller made a significant gesture towards the child. There was no
+intention of menace in it, but the child shrank back, turning, not
+towards his father, but with a sudden instinctive outstretching of his
+hand to Muhammed. The Moor grasped the little fingers silently and
+smiled--a smile which faded as he turned his keen, watchful eyes again
+upon the visitor.
+
+"You must renounce your detention of your son," said Miller. "You must
+bargain with his grandfather. Your price must be a certain competency,
+if you will, but above all the right to return unquestioned into your
+proper place in society. In this way alone can you continue to be of
+use--to me."
+
+There was a silence. Landon, still a-squat upon the floor, his elbow on
+his knee, the heel of his fist supporting his hand, stared up at his
+mentor with impassive eyes. In the shadow on his right Muhammed stood,
+still holding the child's hand, his glance hovering over Miller with a
+speculation which was almost distrust. Behind him the tailor stitched
+apathetically at his dilapidated wares.
+
+Suddenly Landon turned to the Moor.
+
+"You have heard?" he questioned sharply.
+
+"I have heard, oh, Sidi."
+
+"And understood?"
+
+The man hesitated.
+
+"There is a purpose of surrendering the Sidi Jan?" he murmured, and his
+voice conveyed not so much protest as incredulity.
+
+Landon nodded.
+
+"This month of toil, all our leagues of weariness and pain among the men
+of the M'Geel are things lost, then," went on the Moor impassively. "An
+order has come and we must leap to obey it. The Sidi Jan, too? His voice
+is not to be heard in the matter." He shrugged his shoulders
+apathetically. "Only a child," he added, and touched the golden curls
+with a caressing hand. "Only a bale of merchandise, a thing to be bought
+and sold."
+
+Miller turned and looked at him keenly. The Moor met the glance with a
+droop of the head which spoke eloquently of submission. But a queer
+smile began to harden Landon's lips. He rose slowly to his feet.
+
+"A bale of merchandise," he repeated slowly. "And, as I am reminded, we
+toiled to bring it uninjured across the wilds of the Beni M'Geel. Will
+that be reckoned in the value of it?" he asked, and wheeled suddenly
+towards Miller with a savage, cat-like motion. "Will they pay me for my
+sweat and thirst and pain?"
+
+The gray man was silent for a moment. There was something electric in
+the atmosphere, something menacing, something--and this was perhaps what
+his machine-like mind shrank from most--something human and passionate.
+These were not among the goods which Mr. Miller sought to purchase.
+
+"You will do your own bargaining," he said, in a level, dispassionate
+tone. "But the child must be delivered. The price? There you are master
+of your own affairs."
+
+For the second time Landon's eyes dwelled on Muhammed's face.
+
+"I shall answer him--how?" he asked quietly.
+
+"Thus!" said the Moor, and flung his arms round Miller's elbows and
+smothered his lips upon his breast, while Landon, laughing a queer,
+excited laugh, snatched up a garment from the dismal heap on the floor,
+tore off a liberal patch, and deftly wound it in gag-wise between the
+prisoner's teeth. Shackled with ragged waist-cloths at ankle and wrist,
+the gray figure was lowered down the steps into the darkness. Muhammed
+spoke rapidly and incisively for the space of a minute to the Jew, who
+listened in impassive silence. Then, with a last commanding gesture, the
+Moor opened the door and went out again alone into the swiftly falling
+dusk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+MUHAMMED SCORES TWICE
+
+
+Muhammed's steps were bent away from the town towards the row of
+dilapidated hovels which fringe the bank of sand below the nearer
+blockhouse. And he walked quickly; there was definite purpose and no
+sign of hesitation in his stride. He came to a halt before a dwelling,
+half burrow, half barn, round the entrance of which were clustered half
+a dozen ragged figures.
+
+The Moor's face was dark in the shadow of his _haik_ hood, but he
+appeared to need no introduction. He raised a finger and beckoned. One
+of the lounging figures rose grudgingly and drew aside with him.
+
+"I have it from Yakoob, Signor Luigi, that you leave to-morrow. That
+must be altered. It may be necessary to make a start to-night."
+
+The other raised a dark Italian face towards the Moor and eyed him
+questioningly. He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I have no charter from Yakoob," he said. "I return home to Salicudi--to
+await the sponge-fishing season. I need a holiday; this contraband
+running frets the nerves, do you see? I wish to forget the need of
+having eyes--and a telescope--at the back of one's head."
+
+For a moment Muhammed was silent, debating, as it seemed, something in
+which memory or experience gave him no assistance.
+
+"Salicudi?" he questioned.
+
+"In the Lipari group," said the other, laconically. "My home."
+
+"An island?" said the Moor. "And your home? What is it? A house--a
+hut--a castle? Give me particulars. My chiefest need would be privacy.
+Can you guarantee it?"
+
+The Italian pondered.
+
+"You flee from--what?" he demanded.
+
+"From a curiosity which still seems to dog my footsteps," said the Moor,
+drily. "Let it be sufficient for you to know that with three friends I
+desire to vanish from Melilla to-night. We might find it convenient to
+remain temporarily on Salicudi. It depends on your neighbors' thirst for
+information and your capabilities of defeating it."
+
+Signor Luigi gave an expressive and contemptuous wave of the hand.
+
+"On Salicudi are six families--cousins of mine, all of them. I and my
+brother Sandro alone possess boats or money. The others work for us and
+are fed. We do not encourage them to think; they do not tire their
+magnificent brains except under our direction."
+
+Muhammed nodded appreciatively.
+
+"The priest?" he suggested.
+
+"Father Sigismondi serves six islands besides mine," said the smuggler.
+"He visits us by favor of my boat, when Christian offices are in special
+demand. It is a matter I regulate myself."
+
+"Carabineers, tax collectors?"
+
+"Of the former, none; we have leave to cut our own throats. Of the
+latter, one yearly. He is due in about eight months' time."
+
+"Food?"
+
+"Polenta--fish--beans; at times of _festa_ a _risotto_ of kid. We have
+goats, and therefore milk."
+
+The Moor nodded.
+
+"I am empowered to offer you for your hospitality for myself and friends
+twenty _lire_ per head per week during our stay on your boat or island,"
+he said slowly.
+
+Luigi scratched his head.
+
+"One hundred _lire_ for the lot?" he temporized. "You have appetites,
+you Moors; that is notorious."
+
+"We have appetites--for food," agreed Muhammed. "The bill of fare you
+quote contains little that would be dignified as such in my way of
+thinking. You will take eighty _lire_ per week, or lose this trade of
+Yakoob's. Choose quickly."
+
+For the second time the Italian's shoulders rose in a shrug.
+
+"What you will," he said apathetically. "You hold a pistol to my head."
+
+"Try to remember that it remains always loaded," replied the other, and
+turned briskly towards the port. "You had better see to your
+arrangements instantly."
+
+He passed across the sand towards the dirty little Marina which fronts
+the shipping offices and ship-chandlers' booths, leaving his companion
+staring after him with a frown. Then, for the third time, Signor Luigi
+shrugged his shoulders and followed, to enter finally a ship's dingy
+which was tied to the Marina steps. In this he gained a large
+lateen-rigged boat which swung at her moorings in the bay.
+
+The motor launch floated idly on the ripples at the landing stage
+immediately below the citadel. The engineer had come ashore and sat on a
+bench beneath the tarpaulin which had been roughly erected to protect
+some perishable government stores. In the shadow of the Marina booths,
+Muhammed halted and looked thoughtfully at the man and then at the
+launch and finally at the setting sun. The birth of a new and up-lifting
+emotion could be seen working in his expressive eyes.
+
+"Bismillah!" he exclaimed softly. "The one! Why not the three!"
+
+He drew himself up; a deep breath escaped him. He slipped around the
+back of the line of booths and reappeared coming as from the citadel.
+And he had the aspect of haste and importance.
+
+He walked straight up to the waiting engineer.
+
+"I bring an order that you do not await your mistress but return for her
+in three hours' time," he said in excellent English.
+
+The man looked up in stolid surprise.
+
+"Eh?" he questioned.
+
+"Your mistress has accepted an invitation to dine with the governor,"
+said Muhammed. "You are to return for her at ten o'clock."
+
+The man got up and shook himself lazily as he strolled towards the
+launch.
+
+"Nice hospitable old cock--what?" he hazarded. "Didn't send me down a
+small bottle of beer and a sandwich, now did he?"
+
+Muhammed shook his head. The man grunted pessimistically, gave a surly
+little nod, and sat down behind the launch's steering wheel. A moment
+later he was grooving a white trail of foam out into the bay.
+
+Muhammed sighed--a sigh which expressed relief, content, and the
+expansion of a hitherto unleashed excitement. He turned and ran rapidly
+back along the shore. A second visit to the hovels below the blockhouse
+resulted in a conference with another of their deplorably clad
+inhabitants. A taciturn fellow this, of apparently Spanish extraction.
+But the fact that he wore the remains of an extremely dissolute _haik_
+over a pair of remarkably tattered frieze trousers hinted at a
+cosmopolitanism which was buttressed by his speech. He used the _lingua
+franca_ and moved amid an almost palpable reek of garlic.
+
+After the exchange of a few rapid sentences, he relapsed into silence
+but not into inactivity. He paced solemnly down the sand and motioned
+the Moor to help in the launching of a boat. In it they pulled round the
+sweep of the bay into the inner port and moored themselves in the
+berthing which the motor launch had vacated.
+
+The dusk had now become darkness. Lights shone in the booths; the
+distressing clangor of a gramophone sounded from one _albergar_, the
+thrumming of a mandolin from another. There was a clink of spurs as half
+a score of artillerymen clattered down the citadel ramp, eager for the
+squalid debaucheries of the port. A _guardia civile_ sauntered along the
+quayside edge and looked down into the waiting boat.
+
+"Profitable evil-doing is surely at a low ebb when I find El Avispa
+trying to make an honest penny," he meditated.
+
+Muhammed's companion turned.
+
+"Why do you term me The Wasp, Señor?" he asked with a grin of
+complacence. "Have I been known to sting?"
+
+The _guardia_ made a jerky motion of his thumb in the direction of the
+great convict establishment upon the hill.
+
+"I don't know, _amigo_. Your exploits are scheduled up there; have a
+care that I do not need to refer to them. Whom do you await?"
+
+"The Señor and the Señora who landed from the yacht," said the boatmen.
+"They visit the Señor Intendente."
+
+The _guardia_ looked doubtful.
+
+"They landed from a boat, a motor boat," he objected.
+
+"Precisely," agreed the other. "It appears that something affected the
+engine of this, some leak of the jacketing which I do not understand,
+but which I am informed cools the cylinders. The engineer returned while
+he could, enlisting my services to await and explain matters to his
+employer."
+
+"Humph!" grunted the uniformed man. "His choice showed little
+discretion. See to it that you do not disgrace your opportunity. That
+seat is bespattered with fish-oil and scales. Wipe it!" He made a
+commanding gesture towards the offending stain, and walked majestically
+away.
+
+At the far end of the Plaza he was seen to halt and observe two
+newcomers, who appeared leisurely descending the citadel ramp. A
+gold-braided official was in attendance on them, and his gestures were
+rapid and deferential. The _guardia civile_ saluted and spoke. Muhammed,
+watching keenly, gave another sigh. Fate was on his side. The very
+guardians of law and order were unconsciously buttressing his plan. This
+officious _guardia civile_ was already explaining the situation to Miss
+Van Arlen and her companion. The onus of explanation--and possible
+suspicion--was thus being lifted from shoulders possibly less capable
+of bearing it. He muttered his satisfaction in a hurried undertone.
+
+The girl and Aylmer advanced towards the quayside, the gesticulating
+official still in attendance. The latter eyed the waiting boat
+disdainfully.
+
+"Let me demonstrate, Señora," he cried, "that our port can supply
+something less deplorable in the way of shore boats. Let me summon a
+pinnace and crew from the naval arsenal."
+
+Muhammed's heart stood still. But fate smiled on him yet.
+
+Miss Van Arlen protested that the boat would do well enough, that it was
+hardly fair to have kept this man waiting by the instructions of her own
+engineer, as it appeared, and then refuse to engage him. With a smile
+and bow of farewell she took her seat in the stern, while the _guardia
+civile_ muttered stern instructions to the rowers anent their duty. They
+received them in stolid silence. Aylmer took the yoke lines, and amid a
+renewed demonstration of respect from the men of gold braid, the boat
+shot out into the darkness.
+
+A slight mist hung over the water, but the riding lights of the yacht
+were plain enough and Aylmer headed directly for them. He leaned forward
+and asked a question of the man who pulled stroke oar.
+
+"The Señor who came ashore with us?" he queried. "Did you mark him? Did
+he return in the motor boat?"
+
+The man shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I did not see it," he said laconically. "Have the goodness to steer
+well to the right. Your present course will foul a line of net buoys."
+
+Aylmer pulled the line and swerved as directed. And then Claire spoke,
+with a hint of something in her voice which was nearly akin to
+suspicion without exactly attaining it.
+
+"Mr. Miller frankly puzzles me," she said.
+
+Aylmer gave a little nod in the darkness.
+
+"Yes," he agreed. "There is a sense of--of estrangement about him. He is
+good company, a _mondain_, intelligent, but not--human. One feels that
+at every turn."
+
+The girl made a gesture towards the shore.
+
+"What can he have to do in that--that ash heap?" she asked. "A man who
+poses as a _flâneur_, a _dilettante_."
+
+"Pottery?" suggested Aylmer. "He collects; I have seen his collections.
+They are sound and in good taste, without being remarkable."
+
+"That is what I think," she acquiesced. "For the life-work of a man they
+are petty. It is mysterious; he is mysterious! Why did he not rejoin us
+this evening at the governor's office as he promised?"
+
+Aylmer smiled.
+
+"The ardors of the chase," he hazarded. "He is probably sitting in the
+sanctum of some Jew huckster, chaffering for the least worn of a
+collection of Rabat rugs or old Mequinez steel-work. He will come on
+board to-morrow to explain and bid us farewell, and we shall hear all
+about it."
+
+"About what?" asked the girl enigmatically.
+
+Aylmer smiled again.
+
+"About--what he chooses to tell us," he answered, and jerked the
+yoke-line energetically, as a couple of oval dark objects loomed up on
+the surface just ahead.
+
+There was a swish and a dragging sound, and the dark objects disclosed
+themselves alongside as net buoys. They hung below the gunwale
+persistently; the boat was obviously brought to a standstill.
+
+"In spite of my warning the Señor has fouled the fishing nets," growled
+the boatman.
+
+"On the contrary," retorted Aylmer, "your directions carried us straight
+into them. A direct course would have avoided this."
+
+The man shipped his oar and stood up.
+
+"The Señor will permit me to pass him?" he said. "The rudder itself must
+be unshipped to clear us."
+
+Aylmer shifted his seat to one side as the man leaned over him. The next
+instant he had cried out--a choking cry, smothered under the folds of
+the sail which the man had heaped bodily upon his head. His hands were
+grasped and drawn together in the loop of a rope. Lashings were knitted
+about his limbs with almost miraculous rapidity. Stark and inert, he
+felt himself rolled into the bottom of the boat, his rage and horror
+almost suffocating him as he heard the quickly stifled cry which told
+him that his companion was suffering like treatment. And then, for half
+a minute, the rapid rumble of the rowlocks was evidence that the boat
+was being furiously rowed--whither he could not guess.
+
+There was a shock of wood meeting wood. They had run alongside another
+vessel, or possibly the piles of a landing place. Whispered voices
+joined those of their captors.
+
+He felt himself lifted, borne staggeringly forward a few paces and then
+lowered into arms which gripped him from below. There was the creak of
+reluctant hinges. He was placed not ungently upon a floor of planking.
+The voices whispered again, something was laid beside him, touching him.
+The hinges grated, footsteps passed over a floor or deck above his head.
+And then there was silence.
+
+But out in the bay a few minutes later, the decent stillness of the
+night was torn into tatters of uproar. The voice of the Spanish boatman
+was uplifted in appeals for help to every listening saint in Paradise,
+and to every inhabitant of the Melilla's citadel and port. The sounds
+reached, as they were meant to reach, the quay. Every guardroom was
+emptied; the roisterers surged into the street from a dozen _albergars_
+and _cervecerias_. Half a score of boats put out into the night, one
+manned by the naval police leading.
+
+Lament guiding them, within five minutes they reached a point where El
+Avispa clung disconsolately to the keel of his upturned boat, bewailing
+the day of a birth which had developed for him into a life of
+unremitting sorrow. He was dragged into the police boat and ordered to
+explain himself.
+
+It was the fault of the foreign Señor, he deposed. Justice to himself
+compelled him to admit that, though he had every regard for the
+reputation of a cavalier who was now without doubt drowned fathoms deep
+below the very spot on which the rescuing pinnace swam. Being careless,
+or perchance engrossed by the attractions of the Señora who was for
+beauty a very swan, the amateur steersman had precipitated them among
+the mackerel nets. The rudder was fouled. He, Ignacio Baril, sometimes
+called El Avispa, had stood up to pass to the stern and release it. The
+Señora, with entrancing but unfortunate timidity, had risen in her turn,
+and the Señor, gesticulating in argument, had consummated the disaster.
+He had leaned sideways, lost his balance, and caused the boat to lurch
+completely over.
+
+Yes, he himself had put forth the efforts of a Hercules to save, at
+least, the woman. In deference to the memory of his mother, who was
+already among the Saints after a lifetime of charity and benevolence, he
+must bear witness to the fact that her son met this crisis with energy.
+How was he defeated? The truth must out; again it was the foreign
+cavalier. In his panic he had clutched and drawn back from the brink of
+safety the Señora--alas! to perdition. The would-be rescuer had desisted
+from his efforts only when his overtaxed lungs failed him. In a state of
+semi-unconsciousness, Providence had guided his aimless hand to reach
+and rest upon the keel of his overturned boat. He had been saved, it was
+very true, but it was a question if death itself was not to be
+poignantly preferred to safety coupled with such a burden of grief. His
+days must be clouded to his life's end.
+
+And thereupon the bay echoed with the shouts of a hundred searchers and
+the waters glittered in carnival gaiety below the glare of their lights.
+A couple of hours later one of them halted, as if to rest the rowers, in
+the shadow of the felucca _Santa Margarita_. From her bows a long,
+cord-lashed package was silently lifted on the larger vessel's deck,
+while three figures scrambled hastily over the gunwale and crept below.
+Then laboriously the clumsy anchor was hauled home, the broad sail
+spread to the western breeze, and Signor Luigi steered a straight course
+into the bosom of the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE SANTA MARGARITA'S LAZARET
+
+
+The torment of his tightly lashed limbs, the irk of the gag between his
+teeth, want of air, hunger, thirst--these had all done their work upon
+Aylmer and, as the hours went by, produced a partial unconsciousness. It
+was not sleep which overpowered him; it was a thing less merciful than
+that. A numbness had seized both his limbs and his brain. He no longer
+felt the cutting pressure of his bonds; he scarcely realized where his
+powerlessness lay. Effort was paralyzed, that was all he understood. It
+was a nightmare; his brain refused to confront reasons; he was sensitive
+only to effects. Thus it was with a shock as if sensibility itself was
+only then returning that he heard the grating sound of hinges, was
+conscious of a gleam of light in the hitherto persistent darkness, felt
+fingers busy at his lips. The gag fell from between them.
+
+With the powers of speech his own again, his senses used them
+instinctively for primitive needs.
+
+"Water!" he muttered hoarsely. "Water!"
+
+"With pleasure, my dear cousin!" said a familiar voice. "Water, food,
+and even, under restrictions, a little liberty. Has that programme
+attractions? Surely--after what, I fear, has been a monotonous night."
+
+It was Landon who held a guttering lamp in his hand and looked down at
+them complacently--Landon, debonair, smiling, triumphant.
+
+Aylmer's eyes searched past him after the first glance of surprise.
+Touching his feet lay Miss Van Arlen, bound as he had been bound, the
+mark of the gag still grooving her lips and cheek. Beyond her, propped
+against a bulkhead at the end of the narrow oblong lazaret in which they
+all lay, was another figure. Aylmer blinked and frowned in his surprise.
+The face was unfamiliarly pale; the usually apathetic eyes dark with
+repressed emotion. But they both undoubtedly belonged to--Mr. Miller.
+
+This, then, was the meaning of the opening of their prison door for the
+second time the previous evening; this was the addition to their cargo
+which darkness had concealed from him.
+
+Landon gave a pleasant little laugh.
+
+"An unexpected reunion, is it not?" he suggested. "I have unavoidably
+deprived you of a few luxuries, my dear Miller, but have supplied what
+is far more important--true friends."
+
+For a moment the other was silent; his glance reviewed his surroundings
+with careful intensity; he seemed to prime himself with all available
+information before he dealt with a situation which found him moved,
+indeed, but not by useless loss of temper.
+
+"You will probably pay for this--highly," he said in his usual level
+tones. "I do not know precisely what you expect to gain, my dear Landon,
+but believe me the price of this exploit will be more than you can
+afford."
+
+Landon made a gesture of protest.
+
+"There will be a price; you are quick to jump to these conclusions," he
+agreed. "But I, dear friend, am the payee."
+
+He nodded, favoring each of them with a glance in turn.
+
+"Yes," he said. "That is the situation; please understand it. I am
+dictating terms, I. I am no longer the hunted, but the hunter. I have
+many debits in my mental ledger. I propose to collect them once and for
+all, in full."
+
+The three regarded him without speaking, and he laughed again, amiably.
+
+"Sister-in-law," he said, "your sex requires my first apologies. You
+must blame the wind, not me, for the discomforts of the night. While we
+remained within earshot of the land or of passing ships, your silence
+was overwhelmingly desirable. This applied to all three of you, and the
+contumacious wind forbore to rise. But the breeze of the last hour has
+given us an offing which frees you of all disabilities. Your bonds, to
+commence with."
+
+He stooped and rapidly unlashed her wrists and ankles. He put out a hand
+to draw her to her feet.
+
+With an uncontrollable gesture of repulsion, she waved it away and rose
+unsteadily, clinging to the bulkhead. She faced him.
+
+"Have you never asked yourself what the end will be, the end of all
+this?" she said suddenly, fiercely. "You win a trick here and there; you
+reckon up the points; you mock your adversaries. Do you never give a
+thought to what the price, the ultimate price, must be?"
+
+He looked at her--a look that held some curiosity--a tinge, indeed, of
+admiration.
+
+"You are a little unexpected, my dear Claire," he answered. "Does not
+the more material question of food and drink engross you? Do you really
+wish to discuss abstractions?"
+
+She gave a hopeless little shrug of her shoulder.
+
+"It is because you are wholly evil, wholly, that you puzzle me. And yet
+you are not unintelligent; you must know, mere experience must teach
+you, there is a price to be paid!"
+
+"Certainly." Landon laughed again, a mocking laugh. "I sketched it in
+outline to your--your lover--may I have the felicity of calling him
+that?--when I enjoyed his company in the silo on the road to El Dibh."
+
+The color flamed to her cheek.
+
+"You are insolent!" she said, and again Landon laughed.
+
+"Or merely premature?" he asked gaily. "After all, for the moment
+hospitality must engross me and nothing else." He turned and beckoned to
+some one unseen. He received a basket.
+
+"Bread, cheese, wine," he explained. "Will you help yourself while I
+assist my other guests? Or, if they choose, they may assist themselves.
+But I must have your words, my friends, that you will not attempt
+violence or escape if I release your hands."
+
+The two prisoners exchanged glances. Then Miller held out his fettered
+wrists.
+
+"As you will," he said quietly. "Temporarily I give you my parole. I
+retain the right to withdraw it."
+
+Landon nodded and looked at his cousin.
+
+"And you?" he asked.
+
+Aylmer met the look squarely.
+
+"No, to you I will be beholden for nothing," he answered. "I give no
+word; I keep my independence."
+
+Landon shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"You only inconvenience yourself," he said indifferently. "Well, my
+Quixote, stay here then, in the dark, shackled, and alone."
+
+He held back the door, motioning the others into the outer cabin. Miss
+Van Arlen stood still, leaning against the bulkhead.
+
+Landon made another gesture towards the door. "Ladies first," he smiled.
+"While we play at pirates, let us maintain the high standard of
+piratical courtesy."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I prefer to stay," she said quietly.
+
+Landon's surprise escaped in an exclamation. And then he laughed--an
+evil, sneering laugh, which brimmed with insolence and suggestion.
+
+"You--prefer--to stay?" he repeated, and looked from her to the man who
+lay at his feet. "Was my chance shot so far from the target?" he asked.
+"You will stay with--whom? Not a lover?"
+
+Her eyes were stormy, but her voice was restrained.
+
+"Even your insolence does not turn me from my duty," she answered.
+"Captain Aylmer has served, and is suffering for, me and mine."
+
+She turned her eyes from his as she spoke and, as if some power outside
+herself compelled her, let them meet the glance which Aylmer flung at
+her from the level of the floor. Through a pregnant moment she read its
+message--surprise, incredulity, and then hope. These lit fires in it one
+by one, but the last eclipsed all other gleams, and remained.
+
+He spoke.
+
+"Thank you," he said simply. "But I am not here to add to your
+hardships. I cannot accept the sacrifice."
+
+"The decision is with me," she said quietly, but with determination. "It
+is settled. I remain here, with Captain Aylmer."
+
+Landon was still smiling.
+
+"It has its unconventional side, this decision of yours," he said. "I
+must remind you of that."
+
+"You need remind me of nothing," she answered. "I stay; that is all."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Not quite all," he objected. "I must, of course, have a promise from
+you that you will not interfere with Captain Aylmer's bonds in any way."
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Very well," she said laconically. "I promise."
+
+Still Landon hesitated, his hand upon the door.
+
+"And you?" he said suddenly, looking at his cousin. "You shall give me
+your word not to let her touch you."
+
+Aylmer's eyes sparkled with rage.
+
+"Have you not got her word, you _dog_!" he answered, and there was an
+intonation on the last syllable which seemed to sting even Landon's
+imperturbability. For he made a threatening step forward.
+
+"By God, I'll show you where you are!" he cried. "You dare to give me
+your impudence, here?"
+
+He stood looking down, his breath coming pantingly. His cheeks had
+become curiously patched; he gasped.
+
+Miller's even voice broke across the tension.
+
+"Captain Aylmer refuses any relaxations," he said urbanely. "Why not
+accept the fact?"
+
+Landon swung round.
+
+"Do you think I daren't?" he cried menacingly. "Do you think I daren't
+go the whole hog? If I swing him overboard, who's to tell? By the Lord,
+I've a mind for it--and to make myself safe with the rest of you, too.
+I've a mind, a very good mind, to rid myself of the lot of you!"
+
+"And live afterwards--on what?" replied Miller very quietly.
+
+There was silence, more than a moment of it. Landon's fingers sought and
+found purchase upon the wood partition. His glance dwelled upon Miller,
+debatingly. Slowly the flush died from his cheek.
+
+And then he laughed again, harshly, unmirthfully, even apologetically,
+so it seemed, but as if the apology were to himself. He motioned Miller
+to the door. He laid the basket upon the floor.
+
+"Make the most of it," he said. He hesitated. "And don't count on my--my
+good-humor--again." Without a backward look, he placed the lantern on
+the table and banged the door.
+
+Claire made no comment; her whole desire was to dull all sense of
+emotion from the situation. She laid her hand upon the basket; she drew
+out a bottle of wine; she found a tin cup and filled it. She did it all
+with matter-of-factness; she did not spare a glance towards the floor.
+
+And then she knelt beside him, put her arm behind his back, helped him
+to shuffle into an uneasy leaning posture against the bulkhead. She
+brought him the cup.
+
+He shook his head in protest.
+
+"After you," he said determinedly.
+
+Her lips moved to speech, and then she stayed herself. After all was not
+stolid acquiescence best; did not that kill sentiment, and was not
+sentiment the one thing to be dreaded in this situation? She lifted her
+shoulders in an indifferent little shrug and then she drank. He watched
+her quietly. She refilled the cup and held it to his lips. He moved his
+chin in a queer, cramped little nod of acknowledgment and drank in his
+turn. And there was a hint of reluctance in the little sigh with which
+he relinquished the emptied cup.
+
+She refilled it and held it for him again, anticipating his protests
+with the declaration that she herself would have no more, disliked it,
+wished, rather, for food. And so she watched him drink for the second
+time, slowly, swallowing tiny mouthfuls, dwelling on it. A queer sense
+of unreality gripped her as she did so. It was as if she waited on and
+tolerated the foibles of a child. A hundred times she had done as much
+or more for her small nephew, but without this protective sense in the
+doing of it. She realized the fact with a sort of self-inquisition. It
+pleased her to see this man where her help was essential to him. Some
+instinct of the same kind had been awake in her as she nursed and
+watched over him at the silo, but it had died or slept in the
+intervening weeks of ordinary converse at Gibraltar and on the yacht. It
+woke again now; and it had grown unwatched. Why, she asked herself. Why?
+
+And then came the question of food. The basket contained no accessories,
+merely the bare essentials. She had to break the bread and divide the
+cheese with her fingers, bit by bit. And bit by bit she had to place
+each portion between his teeth. She shrank, or she told herself that it
+was shrinking, as her hand brushed his moustache, but was there anything
+truly repellent in this suddenly intimate action? Again self-inquisition
+denied it. Pleasure was in the sensation, not pain.
+
+She rose, at last, when the contents of the basket were finished, and
+placed it on the table. Returning she flicked the crumbs from his
+shoulder and then, with a little sigh, sat down. He looked at her
+gravely, but with a gravity which tells of emotion restrained.
+
+"Thank you again," he said. "Thank you for everything, but--why?"
+
+She gave a little start. Was not this the question that her inner self
+had been dinning in her ears for half an hour? She was humbling herself,
+sacrificing herself even, in the eyes of such as Landon, lowering
+herself to serve this man. Why?
+
+And as she debated she avoided his gaze lest he should read indecision
+in her glance. And yet the answer should have been glib on her lips; she
+had, indeed, already given it to Landon. Duty to a servant suffering in
+her service. But was that all?
+
+"Did you expect me to choose the company of your cousin?" she asked
+slowly. "The very sight of him revolts me. I cannot stand it!"
+
+"You spared me a little of that distaste, at our first meeting," he
+said, and there was the glint of a queer smile beneath his moustache.
+"Have I lived that down?"
+
+"I know now that you are a gentleman," she said simply. "I realize, too,
+that Landon is--is monstrous, wickedness incarnate, beyond the reach of
+human feeling, completely vile. I think," she hesitated, "I think he
+must have concentrated within himself every evil influence that has
+fallen upon his family, to leave you--" again she faltered, as if she
+struggled with a compelling power, not as if a word or phrase escaped
+her--"to leave you--_stainless_," she sighed with an inflection that
+seemed to tell of something reluctant in the effort.
+
+For a moment he was silent. Then the color flamed to his face; the light
+of incredulity woke in his eyes.
+
+"Then I start now with every handicap cleared away?" he asked quickly.
+"You see me--as other men?"
+
+She turned and looked at him. She smiled a little wearily.
+
+"No," she said quietly. "Not as other men."
+
+He drew a deep breath.
+
+"Claire," he said very quietly, "a month ago I came first into your
+life. Fate brought me to you, to earn, and then to resent, your
+unexplained hatred. When I understood it, I swore to myself that I would
+make you--just. That, then, is a task accomplished."
+
+Was this sudden intimate use of her Christian name unconscious or was it
+premeditated? She made no comment; she only bowed her assent.
+
+"That was no personal decision," went on Aylmer. "I did it as a duty--to
+all who bore my name. The personal factor came afterwards, but so soon
+afterwards that I can scarcely tell you when the one merged in the
+other. I loved you; did you understand that?"
+
+And now it was her turn to flush and wince. But was it wincing? The
+pulse which throbbed through her--was it truly resentment? A sense of
+sudden bewilderment came over her--a bewilderment which sought refuge,
+at first, in silence.
+
+"You--you almost threatened me," she allowed at last, with the ghost of
+a tiny smile. "And I am not accustomed to threats. They--they made me
+angry."
+
+"Yes, but you understood!" he cried. "You understood what I sought and
+for what reward?"
+
+There was something masterful, triumphant in his tone which grated on
+her instincts, a reaction to the days when all he said and did grated
+upon her. And it helped her to regain command of herself, to snatch
+herself from the brink to which she was drifting.
+
+"I hoped I misunderstood," she said coolly. "For it was a liberty. At
+the time I considered it an insult."
+
+She did not look at him, but she heard the quick intake of his breath.
+And the sudden pain in his voice smote her with remorse.
+
+"As an insult it is atoned?" he asked. "Does it remain a liberty still?"
+
+She turned her eyes to his, and he looked up to know his opportunity
+there, and could not grasp it. He lay a prisoner at her feet. If he had
+been free, if his arms had been about her, if he had used his man's
+strength and mastery to take and hold her, if opportunity had not mocked
+him, would he have won? Fate knows, but fate was smiling then. And the
+history of man and maid from all ages is with us. Yes, he would have
+won; he would have won.
+
+She gave a tiny gasp, and then the fugitive instinct, the primeval
+resort to flight, was upon her. She sent opportunity packing with her
+reply.
+
+"I am here, by my own choice, with you--alone," she reminded him. "A
+liberty may become a question of--circumstance."
+
+He flushed hotly, and again remorse gripped her as she saw the haggard
+lines draw in about his eyes.
+
+"I can only ask your pardon," he answered. "I ask it, humbly and
+contritely." He gave a wry little smile. "And perhaps circumstance is to
+blame, after all."
+
+Opportunity halted in her flight, hesitated, gave a returning step
+towards beckoning remorse. There was a shuffling sound at the door of
+the lazaret, and opportunity wheeled and fled.
+
+"Let me in!" said a childish voice impatiently. "It's me! It's me! Let
+me in!"
+
+The girl started forward.
+
+"John!" she cried. "Little John! Find the bolt! It's your side of the
+door!"
+
+The shuffling, scrabbling sound continued. An impatient foot kicked the
+panel. And then suddenly, creakingly, the door flew back. The child
+pranced gaily over the threshold.
+
+"I just kicked, so!" he explained, "and it flew in! I did not know there
+was a cupboard here." He gave a shrill little shout of amazement and
+capered towards Aylmer. "It's the pig man!" he cried. "The pig man!"
+
+Claire's arms closed about him and snatched him to her.
+
+"Oh, John--Little John!" she whispered fiercely. "Aren't you glad to see
+me, _me_?"
+
+He held his face back from her for an instant and looked at her
+appraisingly.
+
+"Yes," he said meditatively. "But you aren't come to make me wear clean
+things again? Muhammed doesn't."
+
+And then he wriggled energetically, his eyes on Aylmer.
+
+"Is he hurted?" he asked anxiously. "He was hurted once, last time I saw
+him. Why have they wrapped up his hands?"
+
+A sudden gleam shone on Aylmer's face. He held out the pinioned wrists.
+
+"Could you unknot them, old boy?" he asked quickly. "Would you like to
+try?"
+
+She gave him a glance of comprehension and let the child go. He leaned
+down over Aylmer and his little fingers picked at the cords. He pulled
+at first unavailingly. Aylmer gave low-voiced suggestions, showed which
+knot should be dealt with first. Claire, as she watched, put out a hand
+instinctively to help.
+
+He smiled, but snatched his wrists away.
+
+"You forget," he said quietly.
+
+She drew back.
+
+"Yes," she said. "I forgot," and a flame of unreasoning anger burned in
+her. Landon fought with any weapon he chose to forge--a lie had ever
+been the easiest to his hand. And they? They must not touch the fringe
+of disloyalty; even with him they had to keep perfect faith. Her
+feminine perceptions revolted; this was too rigid for her woman's mind.
+If she had forgotten, for a moment, her promise, why should he not avail
+himself of the slip, which was hers alone? And then she smiled. Had he
+not gone up in her estimation another step? Yes, and she smiled again;
+how long ago was it since she, who now looked up at him, had from so
+very great a height of condescension and dislike, looked down?
+
+Suddenly the child gave a little squeal of triumph.
+
+"There!" he cried. "You pull your hands--so! Then I pull so!" And
+shouted again, for the lashings which lay upon the parted wrists lay now
+loosely, in loops which dangled on the floor.
+
+And then, as anger had seized upon her, so did fear. She looked at him
+with suddenly apprehensive eyes.
+
+"You will do--what?" she asked tremulously. Her imagination pictured
+half a dozen dangers in as many seconds, all lurking to overwhelm a too
+reckless freedom.
+
+He smiled.
+
+"For the moment I dissemble, and wait," he said, and sat down quietly to
+loop anew the cords about his arms, but in running loops, this
+time--knots which would give before one well-directed pull.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+MILLER IS STILL IMPERTURBABLE
+
+
+As the imperturbable Mr. Miller reached the deck of the _Santa
+Margarita_, he took stock, for the second time within a few minutes, of
+his immediate surroundings.
+
+He saw an exceedingly dirty deck on which the smuts from the galley
+chimney appeared to have become embedded through long years of neglect.
+He smelt the very rich, nourishing odor of spaghetti fried with garlic,
+and sniffed unappreciatively, in spite of his hunger. He heard a couple
+of nasal voices chanting cheerfully, but with an exceedingly labored
+accent, the Bersaglieri quickstep, and made a tiny grimace of protest.
+Around him the panorama of sea was empty of all shipping. Land was out
+of sight.
+
+Muhammed leaned lazily against the tiller and eyed his late employer
+with the stolid apathy which an Oriental alone can make convincing.
+Lounging against the panel of the companion hatch, from which Landon and
+his companion had just emerged, sat the skipper, Signor Luigi, idly
+whittling a stick, and looking up at his passenger with an amiable
+indifference.
+
+Miller, it must be remembered, had just passed a night of great
+discomfort and mental agitation following a most unanticipated shock.
+His nerves--is it wonderful?--were at tension. In spite of his own
+imperturbability, on which he set some store, the _insouciant_ aspect of
+his surroundings jarred on him. Was kidnapping, then, such an everyday
+affair that men cooked, and sang, and whittled under his very nose while
+the pirate's gallows very possibly stood awaiting them? He had probably
+never approached petulance more nearly in the course of his well-ordered
+existence.
+
+He turned to Landon with a little shrug.
+
+The other was holding out the half of a yard-long roll of bread, with a
+lump of doubtful-looking cheese.
+
+"I would have suggested a plateful of that spaghetti, my dear Miller,"
+he smiled, "but my watchful eye understood the curl of your nostril.
+This is at least clean."
+
+Miller drew an edge of tarpaulin over a heaped rope, and, after a
+regretful glance at his no longer immaculately gray trousers, sat down.
+He took the bread and cheese and began to eat slowly.
+
+There was something bovine in the manner in which he carefully champed
+each mouthful, something ruminative about the way in which he looked
+around him. But behind this stolid mask of indifference his brain was
+working rapidly. He was putting facts as they appeared to him to the
+test of logic and experience. His mental summing up was rapid. A
+felucca, of Italian register: crew, three men and a boy. Engaged in the
+contraband trade more or less continuously, for the ingeniously
+contrived lazaret between the cabin and the galley showed an attention
+to detail made necessary by continual service. The real mast passed
+through the centre of his prison of the previous night. Yet the half of
+a mast, a sham half, of course, passed through the partition and showed
+in the cabin. Doubtless another half was to be seen likewise in the
+galley. It was a neat idea; there was nothing to indicate to the casual
+glance of a custom's officer that the partition between the two was not
+what it appeared to be. Nothing but actual measurements would discover
+the space which hid the intervening lazaret.
+
+With the tonic of food, his self-reliance was entirely his again. He
+turned to confront Landon after half a dozen mouthfuls, alert to probe
+for the limits of his position. Landon had greatly dared. Did he
+understand how greatly? Miller felt himself restored to a state of
+energy and resolution which would very quickly find out.
+
+"This," he enunciated slowly, "is of the nature of piracy. Do you and
+your underlings realize it?"
+
+Landon was lighting a cigarette. He sucked in a full mouthful of smoke
+and shot it out again before he replied. The act was artificial--far too
+artificial, Miller told himself--in its indifference.
+
+"My underlings," he answered, "realize that they are well on the way
+to--what shall we say--a modest competency. Beyond that, their very
+finite understandings have not advanced. _Domani_ or _mañana_ are words
+frequent in their vocabularies, but not in relation to results.
+Comfortable procrastination--that is the whole sense which they
+appreciate in them."
+
+"Your own outlook is sufficiently intelligent to pierce beyond
+to-morrow," said the other, drily.
+
+"Certainly!" agreed Landon. "I dwell upon to-morrow, and the day after
+to-morrow, and the day after that! I engage in prescient revels in their
+rosy-tinted hours!"
+
+Miller made a little inarticulate sound which expressed a restrained but
+unequivocal irritation.
+
+"Shall we be business-like?" he proposed. "You have entrapped on board
+this boat three people, including myself. What advantage do you expect
+to get out of the situation and, bluntly, how?"
+
+"You are such a rigid man of affairs," complained Landon. "You refuse
+even to eat your breakfast without distractions."
+
+"I find myself in an extraordinary and unfamiliar situation," said
+Miller. "It is obvious that I wish to disentangle myself from it as soon
+as possible. Let me hear and accept or reject your terms. Is there any
+need to be mysterious?"
+
+"None," said Landon, amiably. "But I have not been a man of successful
+_coups_, so far, my dear friend, and you must not grudge me the
+unaccustomed zests I draw from this one. To clear the situation, I
+purpose holding you all three to ransom."
+
+"Where?"
+
+Landon laughed.
+
+"That you must allow me to consider a trade secret. I intend to retain
+your company and that of my cousin and my sister-in-law till I am richer
+by some forty thousand pounds. There you have the situation in a
+nutshell. I am willing to take the advice of such a finished man of the
+world as yourself on business methods. The end in view I cannot consent
+to vary."
+
+The gray man shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"You are of opinion that money will be paid for me? By whom?"
+
+"I can conceive two sources of supply. The German Government--pray don't
+allow yourself to be startled--or, in the last resort, yourself. You are
+not a poor man, unless you have grossly misused your opportunities."
+
+"The German Government has no interests of any kind in my well-being or
+otherwise."
+
+"I must take your word for it," said Landon, politely. "The alternative
+remains by us, literally."
+
+"Meanwhile, what about the laws of--whatever country you purpose using
+the shore of? We do not, I take it, remain afloat--a sort of modern
+Vanderdecken?"
+
+"Let me assure you that no laws or lawgivers will be of the slightest
+assistance. My friend Luigi and I propose being a law unto ourselves and
+you."
+
+"Ah."
+
+Miller's tone was reflective and impassive. He had found out one of the
+things he wanted to know. As he suspected, they were being taken to some
+remoteness, probably an island. He digested the information silently.
+
+"You must pardon the want of--of finish in our arrangements," said
+Landon. "Your capture was entirely unpremeditated; you were a gift from
+the hand of fate. Your suggestion about my child undid you. The boy has
+become the pivot of Muhammed's existence. Queer, don't you think? I have
+never professed to plumb the depths of the Oriental mind."
+
+"And Miss Van Arlen and Aylmer?" questioned Miller. "That was a matter
+of premeditation?"
+
+"Nothing less than an inspiration, a stroke of genius conceived in a
+moment in Muhammed's brain. Premeditate? How could we premeditate? We
+expected you and you only, or your messenger, by the next day's boat."
+
+Miller nodded.
+
+"Miss Van Arlen and her companion are officially drowned," he said. "My
+own disappearance--how is that accounted for?"
+
+"The matter is now probably engaging the interest of the Melilla
+police. They need distraction; theirs is a gray life," said Landon,
+pleasantly.
+
+Again Miller nodded, perhaps unconsciously, and in assent to some
+deduction of his own mind. He kept his meditative air for a second or
+two, shrugged his shoulders again pessimistically, and then made a brisk
+gesture of acquiescence.
+
+"And your terms--to myself--are what?" he asked.
+
+"Ten thousand golden sovereigns," said Landon. "Do I hurt your
+self-esteem by my moderation?"
+
+Miller smiled again sombrely.
+
+"That is, of course, preposterous," he said. "I do not possess half the
+sum. I should not pay it, if I did. If the alternative is that you
+support me for the remaining number of my days, I must accept it."
+
+"That would not be the alternative," answered Landon. "In fact, I hope
+to be able to prove to you that an alternative is lacking. But, at the
+same time, I am willing to hear proposals."
+
+"My proposal remains what it was yesterday. Make your peace with your
+wife's family, give up the child. I shall then be able, I have little
+doubt, to put you in the way of earning more than the sum you suggest.
+But that you become a person tolerated in ordinary English society is
+essential."
+
+"I am, in fact, to work laboriously for what is already in my grasp. You
+underrate my business capacity, my dear sir, you really do."
+
+The gray shoulders were shrugged.
+
+"I might possibly allow a payment of a thousand--let us say--on account.
+That would suffice to establish you in a decent and plausible position.
+The work, as you call it, would not be difficult. I rather fancy you
+would find it amusing."
+
+"I think you want me badly," said Landon. "I think I must be unique for
+your purposes."
+
+"Don't assume that it is your intelligence which my employers wish to
+buy," said Miller, coolly. "It is your social standing, still something
+of an asset in your caste-ridden land."
+
+"But I refuse to have my intelligence underrated," protested Landon,
+gaily. "I hug it; it tells me many things which you may not suspect.
+One of them is that there is a lever which will displace your
+self-confidence. You are a very bad bearer of--physical pain."
+
+Very faint was the pulse of the emotion which throbbed through Miller's
+eyes as he turned them towards his companion, but distinct enough for
+Landon to discover and greet with another amiable little laugh.
+
+"It's where blood tells," he said. "I discovered it accidentally; we
+spoke of what D'Amade's men had to undergo as prisoners at the hands of
+the Moors, did we not? I mentioned the eyes gouged out, the fettered
+wounded flung on slow fires, the impaled. You flinched, my dear sir, you
+flinched badly and--I tried you again. I harked back to like subjects
+more than once; the result satisfied me. And then I began to dwell upon
+your complexion. Is that olive tint from Spain, or was there a near
+forefather in the gorgeous East? Are you of Hindoo blood, my friend--are
+you?"
+
+Miller's impassive eyes met his, looked deeply within them, and wandered
+vaguely towards the empty spaces of the sea. Landon chuckled.
+
+"By God, I wouldn't stop anywhere, with you, you renegade!" he swore
+with sudden, hot, irrational rancor. "I'd deal with you. Will any one
+stop me? Ask those men--Mafiaists, every one. Stop me! They'd give me
+tips; they'd mutilate you as they'd mutilate their own domestic animals,
+for fun!"
+
+Miller drew back a couple of paces, not with any show of disgust or
+fear, but with the air of an artist who wishes to regard a finished work
+from a more distant aspect. And he surveyed Landon keenly.
+
+"So I am being threatened?" he said quietly.
+
+Landon grinned wickedly.
+
+"So you're being threatened," he agreed. "Deliberate the matter; give it
+your best attention; and all the while remember that there is nothing
+which will stop me, not a single solitary thing."
+
+"I think you are wrong," said Miller, slowly, and then--the sound of it
+was bizarre to the last degree between his lips--he whistled a quaint
+little run, which thrilled and quavered up and down half a dozen bars to
+end upon a long-drawn note.
+
+There was a queer silence. Landon looked at him with a frown which
+implied scarcely apprehension, but what is nearly akin to
+it--bewilderment. For there was no mistaking the intention with which
+the thing was done. Miller had whistled the tripping little air
+deliberately.
+
+There was a stirring from below. The two hands appeared, and appeared
+with a suddenness which left no room for doubt that they had been
+summoned. The savor of burning spaghetti followed them; the summons had
+been one exacting instant obedience. They had left the frying-pan upon
+the fire. Together with their appearance came the sound from the
+companion of Captain Luigi stumbling to his feet.
+
+"Fling this man overboard!" said Miller, in level, indifferent tones. He
+pointed to Landon.
+
+Landon gave a shout which brimmed with incredulity as much as fear. His
+hand flew to his breast pocket fumblingly, but too late. Miller's grip
+was on his wrist; Miller's thrust flung him into the skipper's waiting
+arms. As Muhammed relinquished the helm and sprang forward, one of the
+deck hands ducked, tripped him, and rose between his legs--that deadly
+Mafiaist trick which never fails of its results. The other had closed in
+upon Landon as he struggled in the captain's grip. He assisted to drag
+him relentlessly towards the gunwale.
+
+Landon yelled again. His eyes glared out of the struggle at Miller in a
+very fury of amazement. He bellowed oaths, blasphemies, obscenities
+even, the fruits of instinctive passions and automatic to his wrath. And
+there was something almost devilish in the silence which his two
+assailants kept. They panted a little, by stress of effort, but they
+uttered no other sound. They merely edged their victim nearer and yet
+nearer to the side, forced him against the gunwale, stooped with
+concerted action for one last heave, and then--fell away from him with a
+little obsequious shrug. For Miller's voice had been heard again.
+
+"_Basta_--enough!" he had said, his voice still unraised.
+
+Landon lay where their relinquished efforts had left him, huddled
+against the gunwale, and staring up at his surroundings with fierce,
+incredulous eyes. Muhammed was stretched prone beneath his assailant
+who, as he tripped him, had deftly caught the Moor's right wrist and
+twisted it behind his back. He sat on his prisoner now, still holding
+the other's hand, but carelessly and without open concern, perfectly
+aware that the slightest movement from his human pedestal would break
+the delicate bone as pipe-clay breaks--in one clean snap.
+
+"Have I made myself plain?" asked Miller, equably.
+
+Landon used a moment of complete silence to stare round the deck,
+poising his glance on each of his companions in turn. It rested, at
+last, on Miller's entirely emotionless countenance.
+
+"Yes--and damn you!" said Landon, rising sullenly to his feet.
+
+Miller nodded.
+
+"An amateur cannot break into my particular class of business, my dear
+Landon," he said. "There are pitfalls for him at every turn. Membership
+of a dozen organizations is necessary, and they are close corporations;
+even their humbler servants, as you see, find them rigidly exacting."
+
+Landon shrugged his shoulders, produced his cigarette case and
+match-box, stuck a match in his mouth, and drew the cigarette across the
+roughened edge of the box. Miller suffered himself to smile.
+
+"Your nerves are not altogether at their best," he allowed, "but there
+is no need to emphasize the fact. I have no wish to deal harshly with
+you. In fact, half of the scheme you have just outlined to me has my
+approval. I shall not interfere with your desire to receive compensation
+from your father-in-law, but whatever you receive you will regard, if
+you please, as from me, provided by my efforts and to be accounted for
+in full! Is that understood?"
+
+Landon shrugged his shoulders again.
+
+"I welcome your assistance," he said quietly, and put the cigarette to
+its appointed use.
+
+"But _my_ scheme has, in the final event, to be carried out in all its
+details," Miller added. "In your bargain with your relations, complete
+social regeneration and recognition is included."
+
+"But not--the boy?" said Landon, slowly.
+
+"But not the boy," repeated Miller. "The first, I have satisfied myself,
+cannot be obtained without the surrender of the second. You follow me?"
+
+Landon looked at Muhammed, looked at the deck hand who still sat
+impassive on the Moor's shoulders, looked at Luigi, looked, lastly, at
+Miller.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"We are in your hands--literally," he said, and made an amiable gesture
+of assent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+AYLMER CLIMBS--AND FALLS
+
+
+The door of the lazaret was pulled quietly back. The opening showed
+Miller, silhouetted as in a frame, a splash of sunshine which flowed
+down into the outer cabin hanging in a golden halo, as it were, behind
+his remarkably solid looking head. Coming from the full light into the
+darkness--for the lamp was already flickering to final extinction--he
+blinked. And there was something unhuman in his aspect as he stood
+there, searching the gloom with his impassive eyes, something not
+altogether stealthy, but yet something with a tinge of menace in it. So,
+no doubt, the hovering night-bird comes to a pause above its victim.
+
+His glance first recognized Miss Van Arlen. He demonstrated the fact by
+a little deferential movement--a bow which seemed to deprecate, or even
+criticize, the circumstance of her surroundings. He smiled, but with
+slightly raised eyebrows, and as his glance travelled on to meet
+Aylmer's there was a hint of suggestion in it. It was a glance, at any
+rate, which was responsible for the faint flush which rose to the girl's
+cheek and for the hardening of Aylmer's lips. For some reason unknown
+even to himself, the latter's bound arms instinctively moved towards the
+child, who had nestled against his shoulder and had there fallen asleep.
+
+"A scene which would catch a painter's--or a poet's eye--" said the
+gray man, meditatively. "We could call it Innocence, could we not?"
+
+Again he looked from one to the other with that questioning, suggestive
+glance which somehow seemed to deprecate, and yet, at the same time,
+imply equivocation. Neither answered him, and he made an energetic
+gesture--one which relegated trivialities to forgetfulness.
+
+"I must be a source of wonder to you; I am to myself!" he cried. "To
+allow myself to be trapped into such trifling at such a moment! It is
+the artistic temperament; you must address your amazement to it and your
+forgiveness to me. I bring good news, relatively."
+
+Claire rose from her seat on the floor.
+
+"Yes?" she said eagerly. "There is a chance of escape, or, perhaps,
+rescue?"
+
+His eyes became sombre.
+
+"No, my dear young lady," he said. "My optimism has not reached so far,
+as yet. But I have persuaded our captors that Captain Aylmer's detention
+here is not necessary. They do not exact a parole from him, but they
+permit me to loose his lower limbs and to give him the freedom of the
+deck. It is because his release implies your own that this concession
+gives me--and him--undoubted pleasure."
+
+He stooped as he finished speaking, and quickly and deftly unlashed the
+cords at Aylmer's ankles and, with a jerk, pulled him to his feet. He
+shrugged his shoulders as he looked at the still tethered hands.
+
+"I fear I am helpless there, my dear fellow," he said. "Complete rights
+of enfranchisement were not allowed me."
+
+Claire parted her lips as if to speak, hesitated, and pressed them
+firmly together again. The shackling of those wrists was a mere blind
+but--Aylmer forbore to communicate the fact to Miller. Why?
+
+Miller looked at her keenly, inquiringly.
+
+"Yes?" he said. "You want further information? Is that it?"
+
+"I have a hundred questions to ask," she smiled. "How did you get this
+concession? Where are we? What are they doing with us? What is our
+destination?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders again.
+
+"As to the first--a little tact was all that was necessary, though tact,
+indeed, is too self-laudatory a word. Logic, let us say. I showed him
+how unnecessary it was to antagonize a man with whom he would eventually
+have to chaffer. That was mere common-sense, was it not?"
+
+"Chaffer?" repeated Aylmer. He considered Miller; for an appreciable
+moment he surveyed him silently. "That implies a bargain, and to bargain
+there must be goods to sell. Landon has none which will tempt me."
+
+"Liberty," suggested Miller. "Comfort, and not for yourself alone?"
+
+"With Landon I do not bargain," said Landon's cousin, doggedly. "I have
+set myself to clean our name of the stigmas with which he had bedaubed
+it. There are no terms to be made."
+
+"You sacrifice yourself?" said Miller. He paused. "Have you the right to
+sacrifice others?"
+
+"No," said Aylmer, quietly. "You and Miss Van Arlen must do exactly what
+seems best for yourselves. That is a deal apart."
+
+Miller shook his head.
+
+"No, my dear Captain Aylmer," he answered. "That is exactly what it is
+not. Landon's terms concern us all."
+
+Claire looked at him anxiously.
+
+"He has told you them?" she cried. "You are his messenger?"
+
+Miller gave a little bow of acquiescence.
+
+"They are bluntly these," he said. "For you he demands from your father
+the sum of twenty-five thousand pounds. For your nephew, double that
+amount. For myself, I must apologize for placing myself next, but the
+financial sequence necessitates it, ten thousand. For our friend
+here--nothing, or, to be precise, nothing in cash."
+
+She did not flinch as he mentioned the sums. She merely looked
+contemptuous.
+
+"Is that all?" she asked. "He is a common blackmailer?"
+
+Miller shook his head.
+
+"No," he said. "Unfortunately that is not all."
+
+He looked directly at Aylmer.
+
+"It rests with you," he said suddenly. "He wants from you--silence. What
+has happened is as if it had never been. You are to allow him to take
+his place unquestioned in the society which befits his rank. He wishes
+to turn a new leaf."
+
+Aylmer met the look with blank incredulity, at first. Then his lips
+tightened with determination.
+
+"And you?" he cried. "You are taking him seriously? You are going to
+give him this money?"
+
+Miller's out-turned palms expressed a vague pessimism.
+
+"Is there an alternative?" he asked.
+
+Aylmer laughed harshly.
+
+"Blank refusal: what is his answer to that?"
+
+The dark eyes searched the two expectant faces meditatively. The thin
+prehensile fingers picked at a loose splinter in the bulkhead.
+
+"I think he would find a way," he said slowly. "I think--in fact he has
+threatened it--he would--_hurt_ you!"
+
+Aylmer stared at the gray figure, puzzled, frowning. Miller had used a
+new voice for the two last syllables, a voice that shook ever so
+slightly with some concealed emotion. "Hurt you," he reiterated sharply,
+and then darted a quick, bird-like glance at Aylmer--a look full of
+interrogation.
+
+Claire Van Arlen moved forward with a sudden startled movement.
+
+"Hurt!" she cried. "You mean that he would use torture?"
+
+"I think," said Miller, very slowly, "that he would use anything."
+
+And then Aylmer began to laugh--loudly, gaily, and quite
+whole-heartedly. Miller's eyebrows proclaimed their owner's
+astonishment.
+
+"Melodrama!" explained Aylmer, still chuckling. "I remember Landon as a
+small boy, even before his Eton days. He bred these leanings then. He
+wasted his pocket money on 'bloods,' I think they are called--penny
+exhilarators for youths of tender years, crammed with impossible
+villainies. And now he is going to tie flaming splinters between my
+fingers and squeeze my thumbs in the crack of the door! This is the
+price I am to pay for refusing him social rehabilitation. We cannot
+congratulate him on his sense of humor, we really cannot."
+
+Miller paused over his reply, looked down, looked up, and then bridged a
+moment of hesitation with his usual expedient--a shrug.
+
+"For the moment I fear he hasn't got one," he said.
+
+"Possibly not," agreed Aylmer. He nodded towards the door. "I'll take
+advantage of his concessions to come and see." He gave another little
+confident nod to usher the other two before him. As the child ran
+forward he caught him up with his bound hands and raised him shoulder
+high. Then, stooping, he passed out at Miller's heels on to the deck. He
+was laughing still, laughing up at the boy as the childish fingers
+steadied themselves in his hair.
+
+"You won't be able to do that when they shave it to put the pitch
+plaster on," he cried. "And when they've stretched me on the rack, I
+shall be too tall to carry you out of a cabin. And as for being a pig
+man again, and carrying a spear after the thumbscrews have been applied,
+why, it simply won't bear thinking about!"
+
+As he emerged on deck he looked about him keenly. Muhammed's was the
+first figure which caught his eye. The Moor was sitting on the gunwale
+opposite the companion, looking shoreward. And the shore, to Aylmer's
+surprise, was very near on the starboard bow.
+
+Suddenly he realized that it was not the mainland which he saw, but an
+archipelago of islands girdled with reefs. Rockbound channels were
+frames to pictures of the dun red African strand half a dozen miles
+away.
+
+He looked aft. The sun was not far from its setting, hanging in a red
+disc above the distant hills of Algeria. The captain was at the tiller.
+Beside him lounged Landon, watching a gray-painted torpedo boat which
+had emerged from the shelter of the islands and was about to pass close
+under their stern. The gold and crimson of the Spanish naval ensign
+floated at her flagstaff.
+
+Landon looked round as he heard the footsteps of the newcomers on the
+deck. He nodded them a greeting without changing his seat, and did it
+with a studied air of contempt.
+
+"Well?" he said laconically.
+
+Aylmer was silent. His glance traveled over Landon's head to examine the
+war vessel as it passed.
+
+The captain grunted something in an undertone. Landon laughed, and held
+up the first and fourth fingers of his right hand horn-wise.
+
+"The good Luigi advises me to avert the evil eye," he explained. "Does
+that glance of yours threaten us, my affectionate cousin, does it?"
+
+Aylmer sat back upon the boom and looked at the other squarely. The
+child scrambled from his shoulder and went back along the deck to stand
+at Muhammed's knee. But the Moor, after a quick, welcoming smile, showed
+no further recognition of his presence. His glance, the glances, indeed,
+of all on board, centered in the meeting of the two who eyed each other
+across the slant of Signor Luigi's tiller.
+
+Aylmer made a motion of his head towards Miller.
+
+"You sent this man to bargain with me?" he said.
+
+"No," said Landon. "I sent him to tell you my terms."
+
+He laughed; he looked Aylmer insolently in the face and laughed again.
+
+"The thick-headedness of you is what amuses me," he said. "The crass
+incapability of understanding your own case. Order, respectability, good
+feeling, as you call it--these have been propping you all your life. You
+don't understand--how should you?--what it is to be in the hands of a
+man who gives not a jot for any one of them." He snapped his fingers.
+"Not that!" he added. "For honor, standing, the esteem of my fellows I
+give nothing--nothing!"
+
+"And yet chaffer to obtain them," said Aylmer, drily.
+
+"I don't chaffer; I take," said Landon. "I am requiring them as mere
+stage properties necessary to the carrying out of my other purposes.
+Intrinsically they have no value for me."
+
+"Unfortunately for you, you have neither the weapons to win them nor the
+means to buy them," said Aylmer.
+
+"Haven't I?" said Landon, slowly. "Haven't I?" He rose from his seat and
+came a pace or two nearer. "Listen to me, you--you blazing fool!" he
+snarled. "I have you here to break, as I will. See that you don't goad
+me into doing it, for the mere pleasure of seeing you squirm. You give
+me your promise to accept me, push me forward, vouch for me, in the
+rotten mob you call society, or, by God, you'll be sorry before I've
+done with you!"
+
+Aylmer still stared relentlessly into the other's eyes.
+
+"You haven't a thing that'll touch me--not a single thing!" he said. "My
+life? Do you think that has a value for me above the hope of clearing
+you from a decent family's path--into the gutter!"
+
+Landon went white with passion. His fingers worked.
+
+"By the Lord!" he said, and his eyes shot menacing lightnings towards
+Miller, not towards his cousin; "by the Lord, am I to keep my hands off
+him--after that?"
+
+There was a sort of appeal in the question. There was malignance, there
+was red anger, but there was entreaty, the cry of a slave to a master.
+Claire recognized it; so did Aylmer, with amazement.
+
+They both looked at the gray man.
+
+Miller's gesture was all humility, all dejection.
+
+"Don't exasperate him, Captain Aylmer," he pleaded. "He has weapons; he
+has, indeed!"
+
+Landon laughed malevolently.
+
+"By God, I have!" he cried. "Your thick body and your ox's nerves? You
+can pit them against me, if you like! What about your finer feelings, as
+I suppose you'd call them? What about your honor? And--what
+about--_hers_?"
+
+He shot the question out fiercely, insistently, pointing at Claire.
+
+A sudden dryness coated Aylmer's lips.
+
+"What do you mean?" he demanded. He rose, too, towering over Landon from
+the full height of his stature and that, indeed, seemed to have added
+inches to itself since the other spoke.
+
+But Landon, drunk with venom, did not flinch.
+
+"Look at her!" he cried, still pointing. "Look at her! And if you defy
+me, you shall have something more to look at before long! I'll deal with
+her; I'll let these men have their will of her; I'll drag her through
+filth enough--I'll--"
+
+His voice broke hideously into a shriek of pain. Aylmer had flung off
+the lashings on his wrists and continued the movement, as it were, into
+one direct, smashing blow on Landon's mouth!
+
+And Landon fell as a log falls, stark, inert, his head meeting the
+tiller end in his fall with frightful emphasis. He rolled into the
+scuppers at the captain's feet, bloody, disfigured, unconscious as the
+deck itself.
+
+There was a rush from the two deck hands. Muhammed came flying aft.
+Aylmer dodged, landed his fist on the Moor's temple, evaded the hands
+stretched out for him, and sprang for the rigging. Within the space of
+seconds he was standing upon the great cross spar of the lateen, leaning
+against the mast, and waving his arms in semaphore-wise towards the gray
+stern of the torpedo boat as she slid away against the disc of the
+setting sun.
+
+The captain yelled aloud with fury.
+
+"He is signalling to them!" he screamed. "God's Mother! If they see him
+we're undone!"
+
+A sudden light gleamed in Claire's eyes, a light of hope, of relief
+and--bright above them all--admiration. This was a man. Her woman's
+blood quickened to the knowledge that his man's strength had been used
+brutally, splendidly, for her. She cried aloud her encouragement. She
+waved her hand.
+
+"Make them see you, make them!" she called. She beat her open hand upon
+the taffrail in her passion.
+
+The gunboat slowed. Half a dozen signal flags rushed up to her peak. The
+white foam of her wake disappeared slowly with the stopping of her
+engines. Captain Luigi cried out again; he addressed invectives to
+things terrestrial and to celestial things apostrophes at a set value in
+candles, using both forms of eloquence impartially to goad his
+hesitating deck hands to pull Aylmer from his eyrie at the risk of their
+lives. The mariners shook their heads.
+
+And then, at the captain's ear, harshly, snippingly, between his teeth,
+Miller spoke.
+
+"Let go the halliards!" he hissed. "Let go the halliards!"
+
+And Claire Van Arlen heard.
+
+She cried out to Aylmer warningly, shrill in her despair. He did not
+hear or, perhaps, in the intentness of his task, did not heed. She cried
+out again.
+
+Too late!
+
+The two men flung themselves upon the ropes which held the great lateen
+yard in place, slacked them, payed them out suddenly a couple of yards.
+Aylmer tottered, rocked forward, and then maintained his hand hold upon
+the mast. But this time the men reversed the operation. With a
+tremendous effort they jerked the ropes. The spar leaped upwards!
+
+And Aylmer shot into the air and landed stunningly upon the planking at
+Claire Van Arlen's feet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+FATE STAYS HER HAND
+
+
+Rescue, liberty, and, not least, triumph over Landon! These were all
+possibilities, even probabilities, clear to Claire Van Arlen's
+intelligence as she bent over Aylmer--clear, but undefined. Yet the one
+outstanding, engrossing thought was that her champion had fallen in the
+moment of victory. The blood was flowing from a deep cut on his
+forehead; he was unconscious; the color had ebbed from his very lips. An
+agony of apprehension seized upon her. He was dead! He was dead!
+
+And then--the pulse of that relief will be quick in her to her dying
+day--his eyes opened, he stirred. He did more than stir; he made efforts
+to rise.
+
+She held him masterfully; her voice was stern in her command to him to
+lie still. And he looked up at her with an incredulous glance in which
+humor had its part. He smiled--a puzzled smile. Suddenly remembrance
+came back to him and his bewilderment became anxiety.
+
+"The gunboat?" he asked hoarsely. "They saw me, they were slowing down!"
+
+She nodded silently as she looked about her. They had floated within the
+shadow cast by the towering bulk of the island nearest them. The last
+red rim of the sun's disc had passed below the horizon. The dusk was
+gathering. A mile away the gunboat was turning ponderously.
+
+Rapidly she told him what she saw and he nodded a satisfied assent.
+
+"They're done, now," he whispered triumphantly. "We have them in a cleft
+stick!"
+
+But Fate--listening Fate--shook her head.
+
+It was Muhammed who had taken command of the situation, Muhammed who
+roared his orders to hoist again the half-lowered sail, to let drift the
+dingy from the stern, to stand by the halliards for a tack. He leaped
+upon the tiller and flung the boat's prow round to point directly for
+the land.
+
+The freshening breeze from the northwest swelled out the great sail as
+the panting sailors swung the yard aslant the mast. The water sang and
+bubbled from the prow. The _Santa Margarita_ leaped landwards like a
+living thing, straight for the cliffs of shadowing stone.
+
+Captain Luigi, completely unnerved by the sudden crisis to which events
+had soared, wailed protests without attempting interference.
+
+"I call you to witness that I said he had the evil eye!" he cried. "I
+call you to witness! Capture or destruction--there are no two ways to
+it!"
+
+"There is One God and one road to safety for a brave man," answered
+Muhammed, as he leaned his strength upon the helm. "They call it
+courage. Run out the French flag, _amigo_! They dare not fire on that,
+here, in debatable waters, for all their claim to these islands as
+within the grip of Spain."
+
+A sudden pang of doubt shook Claire. The gunboat was completing its
+turning movement--slowly--ah, how slowly! And yet? How could the
+felucca, with no more than a fresh breeze to rely on, hope to evade
+that greyhound of the seas? A spout of gray smoke burst from the gray
+painted sides; the sound of a cannon shot echoed down to them among the
+crags.
+
+Muhammed laughed.
+
+"Blank cartridge," he said derisively. "Within five minutes their faces
+will be as blank. Sons of dirt, I spit upon you!"
+
+The girl's apprehension grew. Confidence rang in the Moor's voice. He
+smiled as one who had already triumphed. And still the felucca drove
+shorewards, relentlessly towards the bare face of stone.
+
+But the torpedo boat was gaining speed. The white lift of the foam was
+veiling her bows; she ripped through the waters as a blade rips through
+calico, directly, cleanly, tossing aside the waves. Another few
+minutes--seven--six--perhaps less--and she must be alongside. And the
+island cliff seemed to overhang them now; the great sail flapped as the
+breeze beat back from the sheer rock against its breadth.
+
+A second time Muhammed roared his orders. The sailors shifted the huge
+spar around the mast, swinging it as on a pivot. The _Santa Margarita_
+came about, dancingly.
+
+The rush and boil of breaking foam on the seaward bow caught Claire's
+ear. She glanced over the taffrail.
+
+A comber was breaking on a great tooth of black rock within half a
+cable's length of the boat. Not far ahead she saw the white after-spume
+of another--and beyond that a third--a fourth--countless ones. They were
+within a very labyrinth of reefs. And Muhammed, swerving the tiller
+delicately from side to side, steered unshaken, his eyes piercing into
+the swiftly coming gloom, the smile of victory growing round his lips.
+
+She understood, and before she turned her eyes astern knew hope was
+lost. The torpedo boat was slackening speed; the cream of her wake began
+to slide past her sides and swirl round her bow as she slowed, went
+astern, halted on the lips of danger, and then reluctantly turned.
+
+A yell went up from the felucca as the crew saw themselves saved--a yell
+of defiance.
+
+Again the gray jet of smoke spurted from the gray port, and this time
+the background of purple dusk showed the red tongue of the flame. The
+sound of the report reached them, but not so swiftly as another sound--a
+nerve-rending menace which shrieked in their very ears, as it seemed,
+and passed, to thunder crashingly against the forehead of the crag. And
+again Muhammed laughed and showed his white teeth, and roared to his
+fellows to swing the yard-arm about as he spun the boat between two
+waiting jaws of rock and sent her bounding out into the open before the
+lash of the favoring breeze. And night fell over them--for Claire Van
+Arlen the hopeless night of despair.
+
+She looked up to find Miller standing beside her, looking down at
+Aylmer's face with sombre, inquiring eyes. And she realized for the
+first time that in that face the eyes were closed again, the lips
+bloodless, the cheeks sunken. She gave an exclamation; she bent and
+stanched the blood which still flowed from the wounded temple.
+
+Miller picked up a bucket, seized a rope, attached it to the handle, and
+slung it overboard. He placed it, brimmed with water, at her feet. She
+looked up again, eyed him silently and without thanks, dipped her
+handkerchief in the water and laved Aylmer's face. And Miller himself
+remained silent, as if he would force the first comment from her, as if
+he probed for information by mere inertness. Had he been heard? She
+guessed that he was asking himself--and by force of silence, her--this
+question.
+
+A sudden instinct not to betray herself gripped her. Aylmer? Was not he
+an example of a like reticence? He had not revealed the fact that his
+hands were free till circumstances had revealed it, with a vengeance.
+She would follow this example and so tell nothing. She pillowed Aylmer's
+head gently upon a coil of rope and stood up.
+
+"The hope of rescue is gone then?" she said quietly. "There is no chance
+of their rounding the island, and encountering us later?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders doubtfully.
+
+"They seldom carry search-lights--craft of that size, in the Spanish
+navy, at any rate. No, Muhammed's seamanship has taken the trick this
+time. Spanish captains do not waste coal lavishly, and what, after all,
+have they to go on. Merely the words 'Help! Prisoners!' It might easily
+have been the vagary of some half-drunken sponge-fisher."
+
+She looked at him keenly.
+
+"That was what he signalled?" she said. "You understood that?"
+
+"I know the international code," he said simply. He looked down at
+Aylmer again. "His escapade has not improved our position," he added.
+"When Landon comes to himself--"
+
+"He is not seriously wounded, then?" she cried in quick disappointment.
+"I had hoped--I had prayed--"
+
+"What?" he asked, as she hesitated.
+
+"That he had been killed," she answered slowly. "Is there any escape
+from the net of villainy in which he has us all entrapped?"
+
+He looked at her silently, and the dawn of a hard smile glimmered about
+his lips. He pointed aft.
+
+"Will you come and look?" he said. "Perhaps I have undervalued your
+prayers. I am no surgeon, but I would wager a larger sum on his reviving
+than I would on the recovery of--this."
+
+He touched Aylmer with the point of his foot. There was no ungentleness
+in the action, but it seemed instinctive--the gesture of an autocrat or
+of a dictator, seeing all men under his feet.
+
+She gave a gesture of assent and followed him into the gloom cast by the
+sail upon the stern. Landon lay within a foot of where he had fallen,
+his head pillowed upon a tarpaulin. Muhammed had relinquished the tiller
+to Captain Luigi and was dropping _aguardiente_ between the set lips and
+the color was stealing slowly back into the cheeks which had been as
+pale as Aylmer's own. Landon's eyes opened as Claire reached and stood
+beside him.
+
+They met hers at first without recognition. Then a gleam of feeling
+flashed in them--a gleam which grew in fierceness as he gazed.
+
+"I remember!" he muttered. He made a feeble effort to rise, which
+Muhammed prevented by the steady pressure of a hand. "By the Lord, he
+shall pay for it--and you!"
+
+And then, meeting that glance, and stricken by the revulsion from the
+hope which the events of the last few minutes had engendered, Claire
+surrendered to a sense of despair. What could the future hold for her
+except--the worst? As far as she was concerned, the deal with fate was
+finished and she had lost finally. But even despair could not crush the
+maternal, protective instinct which had sprung into being in the silo of
+El Dibh, which had grown into full flower through the last dark hours in
+the lazaret. She spoke quickly, on the spur of the moment.
+
+"Him you cannot hurt," she answered. "He is escaping you; he is dying."
+
+Landon struggled under Muhammed's restraining hand.
+
+"Is he?" he cried, looking at Miller. "Is he? He's not going before I
+get my hands on him! For God's sake, man, say he isn't! Say it isn't
+true!"
+
+Miller shrugged his shoulders apathetically.
+
+"We'll do all we can," he temporized.
+
+Landon gnashed his teeth and burst into hysterical weeping.
+
+"Ah, but I wanted to have my will of him!" he cried. "It's he and all
+the thousands like him that have put me here! The cursed hypocrites! I
+slipped; I went against their code, and they jostled each other to
+trample me when I was down! And I?" He shook his fist weakly into the
+night. "I? I was no worse than the best of them. I was only myself--the
+natural man--and they flung me out! And I could have repaid every stab,
+every kick, on him--on him!"
+
+He writhed and then suddenly steadied himself. Again his eyes focussed
+evilly upon Claire.
+
+"Go to him!" he ordered. "Go to him and do your utmost for him! Bring
+him round and I'll be light with you; I'll save you--the worst of it.
+Let him slip through your fingers, and by every devil in Hell I'll make
+you pay double, double, and double that!"
+
+She turned from him silently and in turning made a little stagger.
+Miller's hand slipped under her elbow; for an instant she found that he
+was supporting her. She stirred away from him in uncontrollable disgust.
+
+A moment later she had pulled herself together; she murmured a
+disjointed sentence of thanks, and moved away towards the scuppers where
+Aylmer still lay motionless, realizing, as she reached it, that the gray
+man was still at her side. He was looking at her keenly, but with an
+impassive gaze which told her nothing.
+
+She bent her face to the white lips. Faintly, but still distinct, she
+felt the breath pass from them. She rose with a little gesture of
+appeal.
+
+"You must help me," she said. "We must get him below."
+
+For a moment he hesitated. Then he passed his arms behind the other's
+shoulders and lifted him. She bent and took his knees. Staggering again
+at first, but with growing steadiness, she helped to half carry, half
+drag him to the companion, into the cabin, to lay him, at last, on the
+floor of the lazaret.
+
+She drew off her jacket and arranged it under his head.
+
+She rose and looked at Miller.
+
+"Now, if they will give me food and water, I will do what I can," she
+said simply. "Quiet is his best chance, absolute quiet."
+
+He gave a little bow of assent.
+
+"We must hope for the best," he answered. "You must rely on me all you
+can; come into Landon's notice as little as possible. I will use my
+influences, such as they are, for the best."
+
+The hot throb of repulsion--of hate, even--throbbed up in her, knowing,
+as she knew, that he was false to her, but she kept her face unmoved.
+She nodded.
+
+"Yes," she answered quietly, "unless--you think my duty is to let
+him--die?"
+
+His imperturbable face lost its calm for a moment. He was genuinely
+startled.
+
+"But no!" he cried quickly. "Things are not as bad as that! The threats
+he used? Those were the results of shock, of delirium. I would prevent
+that--I."
+
+She looked at him very steadily.
+
+"Yes?" she said. "You--a prisoner, like myself. How?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders vaguely.
+
+"He is open to reason," he said. "He could not afford it; I could make
+that plain to him, I have every assurance that I could."
+
+He was looking at her searchingly--frowning, showing dissatisfaction
+with himself for his slip. She was content to let it pass.
+
+"Thank you," she answered. "You give me hope," and truly enough a wild,
+incredulous hope had just arisen in her heart, for her gaze had been
+still on Aylmer's pallid face at her feet.
+
+The gray man still hesitated and then, with the air of one who has
+probed an enigma the solution of which still escaped him, turned and
+passed into the cabin. She heard his footsteps echo along the deck over
+her head.
+
+Aylmer's eyes opened, and then one of them closed again, in a wink!
+
+She laid her finger warningly upon her lips. She bent till her lips
+touched his ear.
+
+"I knew it--I knew it!" she breathed joyfully. "Ah, but you nearly
+spoilt it all. You smiled--I saw the beginning of it--when he made his
+slip, and he might have seen it, too!"
+
+He smiled again.
+
+"The renegade!" he whispered. "I knew it before this last hour; I saw it
+in his face when Landon came here, before. They have some understanding,
+those two. And it was he who betrayed me--with his suggestion about the
+halliards. I heard him, before they let them go!"
+
+"And I!" she answered. "He is against us; we are alone, against them
+all!"
+
+"Where does his profit come in?" he asked, wonderingly. "What arguments
+has Landon used; how can a man like him be the gainer?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"One has met him--in Gibraltar--in society," she said. "But do we know
+anything of him; does any one know?"
+
+He was silent for a moment.
+
+"No," he said, at last. "No one knows. I have heard it spoken of, his
+unknowableness, but no one has supplied a key to the mystery. I think--I
+think if we win out of this I must set machinery to work in
+Gibraltar--to find out."
+
+"If!" she repeated sadly. "If!"
+
+His lips set firmly.
+
+"Not if," he answered resolutely. "When! Do you believe that men like
+Landon win! You, yourself? Didn't you tell him that he would have to
+pay, eventually. I'm going to present the bill--I. I know it; I have it
+as a conviction!"
+
+Her eyes glowed down at him. The dead roots of hope began to sprout in
+her heart. The down-hearted, the _fainéant_? Has any natural woman a use
+for such an one? No! Nature made you the leader, they cry to the male.
+For God's sake, behave as one!
+
+She offered no protest, no comment. She did not question his faith; her
+matter-of-factness only asked for detail.
+
+"Meanwhile?" she questioned. "Meanwhile?"
+
+He made a little grimace.
+
+"It is a gray prospect," he admitted. "I lie here, unconscious. I lie
+physically--and by implication--morally. I feign myself as one on the
+lip of extinction. I wait!"
+
+She felt vaguely disappointed.
+
+"You wait--till when?" she asked.
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Till a very old friend comes by," he answered. "She has seldom failed
+me, and then my own laggardness was at fault. They call her
+Opportunity."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE PRISON
+
+
+"What is to be the end?" asked Claire, suddenly, wearily. "What is to be
+the end?"
+
+Aylmer looked up from his pallet on the floor--looked at the
+girl--looked at the walls of bare masonry--looked at the shaft of
+sunlight which slanted through the barred window. For eight and forty
+hours he had lain there, shamming, shamming, shamming. For three days
+previous to his being brought to that place, he had lain as motionless
+in the lazaret of the _Santa Margarita_.
+
+Conceive it--you who walk abroad as you list! Nearly a week of inaction,
+when all the time your blood is coursing healthily in your veins, your
+feet itch for the road, and your wrath, above all, is suffering a
+continual fever for which no remedy is presently available.
+
+The picture, however, had its other side. Could he, in any other
+circumstances, have advanced so far in intimacy with his companion?
+When, in the ordinary intercourse of uneventful life, would the barrier
+which she had raised against him have been flung down? Where else than
+in this island prison of Salicudi would he have seen the glorious vision
+of hope over that barrier's crumbling walls? Dwelling on these matters,
+he was able to answer her pessimism with a genuine smile.
+
+"When I first met you I told myself that I should have to play a waiting
+game," he said. "Well, it is proving itself so, literally."
+
+She flushed faintly.
+
+"You must forgive me," she sighed. "We women are not taught to wait. And
+in America we are allowed to be petulant, you know." She smiled. "You
+Britishers have more sense of discipline. But an end? Surely you
+yourself must want to see one? How long are you to lie there, paralyzed
+for action?"
+
+He was silent for a moment, and his eyes were shadowed.
+
+"It is I who must ask forgiveness," he said at last. "Perhaps--I hardly
+realized what it is--for you."
+
+A throb of compunction stung her. She gave a little cry of protest.
+
+"For me? It is a thousand times worse for you. I have liberty, in a
+sense. They let me walk abroad, even, at times--I am not interfered
+with--I can look out to sea and--and hope. I have you to lean on. But
+you? You lie within these four walls and think, and think. Your only
+support is within yourself. And I am a drag upon you."
+
+And then she turned her face from the sudden passion in his eyes.
+
+"Claire!" he said. "Claire!"
+
+She did not answer in words. She made a little gesture which seemed to
+plead for forbearance, for a postponement to an inevitable but far
+distant morrow. She rose and walked to the window.
+
+"There is a ship passing now," she reported. "Half a mile from land. I
+can see her flag--the Union Jack. A Newcastle collier, I expect, by her
+bulk and her grime. I suppose there are a score of unwashed deck hands
+and heavers in her forecastle who would sweep this island bare of the
+human vermin who infest it if we could let them know our need, if we
+could signal--wave--act! Act? But to go on waiting? To have not so much
+as a plan?"
+
+He rose cautiously.
+
+"There is no one in sight?" he asked.
+
+She looked right and left, keenly suspicious.
+
+"No," she said, at last. "I watched Luigi back to the houses after he
+left our food. He and half a dozen more are at the landing place. Two or
+three are on board the felucca, working her with sweeps into the shelter
+of the little breakwater. Mr. Miller? He is sitting on a boulder,
+watching--and like us, I suppose--waiting. What are we all doing but
+that? Fate is to be the arbiter for all of us. We can offer no
+interference."
+
+He came up beside her, keeping in the shadow and peering cautiously
+between the bars. His glance was directed at the _Santa Margarita_ as
+the toilers at the sweeps slowly worked her to her moorings.
+
+"They are making it the more difficult for us," he said slowly. "While
+she lay out there in the open, she represented the weapon with which we
+might have defeated Fate, if Fate is against us. Inside the breakwater
+the edge of the weapon is blunt. Did Fate read my thoughts?"
+
+She looked at him anxiously.
+
+"You have had a plan?" she asked. "You have not been leaving all to
+chance?"
+
+"Wind--that is all I asked," he said. "A storm, a moonless night, and a
+little luck. If I could have got on board the felucca with you and cut
+her from her moorings, we would have played a deal with Fate then. We
+would have enlisted her on our side, to take us where she willed."
+
+Her eyes grew vivid with hope and with anxiety.
+
+"But to get on board? We are locked in at night, bolted. And those dogs
+of theirs are loose."
+
+"That is it--they are loose," he said. "A few handfuls of food saved and
+we can attract them to the window, and they will be quiet enough when
+they are fed. It is merely a question of the getting out."
+
+"And how?"
+
+He pointed to a corner of the unmorticed wall.
+
+"Their bars are sound enough, their bolts are out of reach of our
+tampering. But the building itself? Its foundations date from the days
+of Augustus, as likely as not. At night, while you slept, I tried its
+stability, course by course. It was in that corner that I found the weak
+spot. The lower stone I can remove at will. The one above it will fall
+when the support of the first is removed. And I put pressure enough on
+to the outer stones to know that a strong effort will thrust them away.
+The road is open, when we choose to take it."
+
+She clapped her hands softly. Her face glowed.
+
+"Why not now?" she cried. "Why not choose the passing of a ship and then
+signal--as you signalled to the torpedo boat?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"A warship is one thing," he objected, "a merchant ship another. We
+should be poising our all on the intelligence of a look-out-man who
+would be scanning the water, not the land, or of a third officer who
+might not know the code international."
+
+She sighed.
+
+"So we wait," she said despondently.
+
+"So we wait," he agreed. "But not for long." He was looking westward at
+the sky.
+
+"You see something?" she said quickly. "What?"
+
+"Wind clouds," he answered. "Cirrus. Fate may be making her preparations
+for to-night."
+
+"To-night?" She repeated the word faintly, incredulously. "I wonder,"
+she said slowly. "I wonder if, after all my yearning for action, I
+shall--be brave when it really comes to--to-night?"
+
+He looked down at her.
+
+"And I?" he said. "Have I as good a chance as you to show courage?"
+
+"You?" she answered wonderingly. "You are a man."
+
+"Yes," he answered. "I am a man. And you, a woman, are dependent on me
+and I am taking you into perils that I can only guess at, dangers that
+lie absolutely in the hands of chance. For which of us is it easiest to
+be brave, you or me?"
+
+Her eyes dropped from his.
+
+"What do you hint?" she temporized. "For me--why should it be easier for
+me? The--the cases are equal, are they not?"
+
+"No," he said quietly. "No, Claire. And you know that they are not. Not
+because you are a woman, but because you are _the_ woman; because you
+are you--and I--am myself--and love you!"
+
+And this time there was a note in his voice which she had not recognized
+before, vibrant, unrestrained, passionate. The thrill of it pulsed
+through her; she felt it in her nerves, her very veins. She flinched
+from it, she gave a tiny pant; the womanly instinct of evasion made her
+draw back from him a startled pace.
+
+"Isn't that the truth?" he asked, his voice hoarse with its intensity.
+"Isn't it easy to be brave for oneself alone--easier than to be brave
+for another?"
+
+She stood looking at him, strangely, doubtfully, the shadow of dumb
+entreaty in her eyes. But in her heart other shadows were fading to
+disclose realities hitherto faintly suspected and half defined. Was this
+the true meaning of the fear which had suddenly been born in the moment
+of hope? Was it for his sake she paused upon the threshold of danger?
+The protective instinct which she had recognized in herself with
+wonder--had that grown into something more? Was it death with him or
+life without him that she pictured as the worst that Fate could give?
+
+The silence grew in tension but she could not break it. What was only
+then revealing itself to her--could she reveal it to him? She drew back
+another pace, she held out her hand as if she warded off the inevitable.
+
+"I cannot tell," she said weakly. "But--but I think I could be brave for
+myself--alone."
+
+He made an exclamation, his arms went out to possess her, his eyes
+shone--
+
+"No!" she cried passionately. "No! Is it fair, is it right to take
+advantage of our position; is it honorable?"
+
+And then she regretted her words in the very speaking of them. The
+passion faded from his face, a shadow veiled his eyes, he made a gesture
+of contrition. And she? With feminine inconsistency she opened her lips
+to undo what she had done, to make her victory defeat.
+
+Again Fate intervened. Aylmer whispered warningly, slipped across the
+flags, and stretched himself upon the pallet. One look through the
+barred window explained his action. A hundred yards away a couple of
+figures were advancing towards the building. She recognized Landon and
+in his companion, Miller, talking vehemently.
+
+She left the window and waited, sitting on the rough stool which was
+placed at the pallet foot.
+
+A minute later the sound of bolts withdrawn and a key in a lock echoed
+under the stone arch. Landon entered alone, debonair, smiling, but with
+eyes which were ominous of intention.
+
+He looked down at the pallet.
+
+"Our sufferer--our patient? Do we perceive no signs of progress?"
+
+There was danger in his voice; she read it unmistakably.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"He is no different," she said apathetically. "He has spoken, once or
+twice. I see no change."
+
+"That is the misfortune of it all," said Landon. "You see no change. Can
+your nursing be at fault--not from want of care, let me say at once, but
+from want of knowledge? Must we call in further advice in consultation?"
+
+His face was white and haggard below the soiled bandage which crossed
+his forehead. The sharpness of his jaw, his sunken cheeks, made of his
+smile a very evil thing. She flinched before it.
+
+"I cannot tell," she answered wearily.
+
+"His movements, now?" grinned Landon. "Do they give no indication of his
+condition? Has he no conscious interests?"
+
+The eyes below the bandage glittered and fear stabbed her suddenly. Were
+they betrayed?
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"You see for yourself," she answered, and made a gesture towards the
+motionless form on the pallet.
+
+Landon laughed.
+
+"No, I do not see," he said. "I am not a physician. I cannot walk to a
+bedside and deliver sentences of death or reprieves to life like the
+miracle mongers of Harley Street. Unconsciousness? How is it diagnosed?
+Sometimes by actual experiment _in corpore vile_, is it not?" He leaned
+over the bed. His hand slipped into a pocket and reappeared holding an
+open penknife. He thrust it suddenly into Aylmer's arm.
+
+She gave a cry of indignation; she seized his hand and dragged him back.
+
+He laughed savagely and tried to fling her off. She threw her whole
+weight upon his wrist, clinging to it.
+
+And then he laughed again, with malignant enjoyment. He changed his
+tactics. He no longer evaded her grip. He jerked her towards him. And
+this time the penknife point found a new sheath. Deliberately he stabbed
+it against her shoulder and--held it there!
+
+She shrieked.
+
+There was a stirring from the pallet bed. With a mighty leap Aylmer was
+on his feet! His face was convulsed; his eyes were lightnings.
+
+For the third time Landon laughed, triumphantly. In the same motion he
+released his prisoner and sent her spinning against Aylmer's
+outstretched arm. He himself was at the door and outside it, slamming
+it, locking it, flinging home bolt after bolt before the two inside had
+recovered from the sudden shock. A moment later he reappeared at the
+window.
+
+"Well, my early convalescent!" he mocked. "Have you no thanks for such a
+sudden recovery? And you, sister-in-law, for such a lesson in the
+healing art? Think of the efforts wasted on that malingerer. Aren't you
+blushing for the ease with which you were deceived?"
+
+And then the twinkle of wicked laughter faded from his eyes. He drew
+near the window bars and glowered down at them evilly.
+
+"Or are you blushing for yourself, you wanton!" he cried. "You who
+deceived me into leaving you with him as a nurse, and knew that he
+needed none. A little paragraph with hints--or more than hints, the
+truth--about such a matter, and where do you stand? Are there society
+rags in London and New York ready to accept that sort of matter? Yes,
+virtuous cousin and sister-in-law, I think there are, I think there
+are!"
+
+Neither of them flinched. They looked at him fixedly and, in the girl's
+case, almost wonderingly. And Landon read the message of her incredulity
+with a chuckle of enjoyment.
+
+"I keep on presenting surprises to you, do I not?" he grinned. "My
+versatility, the quickness with which I seize new points of humor
+impresses you?"
+
+For a moment she was silent. And then, as if a force beyond her control
+forced her to speak, she answered him.
+
+"I did not believe in the possibility of there being a thing as vile as
+yourself," she said. "I did not think God allowed such as you to live!"
+
+The satyr-like grin broadened across his haggard cheeks. He leered down
+at them.
+
+"I revel in it!" he answered. "By the Lord! Till you've tried absolutely
+unrestrained wickedness, till you've thrown off every sort of control,
+till you're one with the devil and proud of it, you don't know what
+enjoyment is!" His eyes glowed; he smote his fist ecstatically on the
+stones. "It's great!" he cried. "Great!"
+
+A gray figure came suddenly into view behind him. Miller's face showed
+white against the shadow of the dusk which was heralding its coming by
+the deepening azure of the sea and sky. And his glance seemed to hold a
+significance which the prisoners were meant to read, but for which they
+had no clue.
+
+Landon heard him and wheeled.
+
+He surveyed him slowly and then he laughed.
+
+"I'm beyond you now, teacher!" he derided. "I used to admire you--the
+callousness, the relentlessness--which you could put into a job! But I'm
+way up above you. Decency had to be part of your stock-in-trade."
+
+He laughed again, his harsh, cackling merriment, and there was a note in
+it which struck a new chord of fear in Claire's heart. It was inhuman,
+unintelligent, this laughter. It fell poignantly, horribly on the ear.
+
+"To-morrow--_mañana_!" chuckled Landon. "I'm coming back with all my
+friends. We'll give hours of daylight to the job and, by God! we'll make
+a good one! Think it over; give it your attention through the night! My
+terms, every word of them or--well, try and guess the persuasions I'll
+use. Meditate on them; paint them up in your imaginations and then
+you'll fall short! And as for restraints, remember that in my particular
+case there isn't such a thing, not one!"
+
+He stood staring down at them through a moment of leering
+self-satisfaction, and then slowly, reluctantly, turned away. He took
+Miller's arm and drew him insistently down the path. His evil laughter
+came back to them shrill upon the evening breeze.
+
+Inside their prison the two turned and confronted each other. Then
+Aylmer spoke.
+
+"He has defied God, and the judgment of God has fallen on him. He is
+insane--that is evident! Insane with malice, with his surrender to the
+devil and all his works."
+
+Her lips were parched. She whispered.
+
+"And to-morrow?" she questioned, thickly. "To-morrow--we shall have to
+surrender, too. To him?"
+
+He clenched his fists.
+
+"No!" he said. "No! Not while Fate has given us to-night--to-night!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+PADRE SIGISMONDI
+
+
+The presage of the afternoon sky was amply fulfilled by midnight. The
+western gale howled through the window bars and the sound of the sea's
+thunder rolled up from the beach. For the Mediterranean it was a gale
+beyond the normal, one that had borrowed strength from its Atlantic kin.
+It lashed the green islands of the archipelago with unaccustomed
+violence. The vine poles fell in ranks before its blast; the lava dust
+whirled up in spirals; the pebbles clattered along the face of the
+shingle. And yet there was something strange, noticeable, almost
+ominous, about the tempest. It had none of the northern breath of ice.
+It was a hot wind; in spring or summer, and had it risen in the south,
+one would have called it sirocco and kept in the shadow throughout its
+blowing. But this wind blew from the north and the month was December.
+The islanders mused over the phenomenon debatingly.
+
+Inside the prison the storm muffled sounds which, however, no listener
+was abroad to detect. A common table fork his only implement, Aylmer was
+levering the massive corner-stones inch by inch from their seating. The
+lower one had already been removed, but the upper one, as expected, had
+not fallen from its place. He panted as he put forth his strength upon
+it. The ebb and flow of his pulses swelled in the half-healed scar on
+his temple. Blood was flowing from a few superficial cuts upon his
+fingers. He ground his teeth and tugged at the stone savagely, worrying
+it as a terrier might worry a defiant rat. And then, with an unexpected
+jerk, it fell out upon him bodily. He dropped backwards, the stone's
+weight upon his leg.
+
+He gave a half-muffled cry, not of pain, but of satisfaction. The rest
+was easy; the road was open.
+
+Then, as he panted in the relief of accomplished effort, Fate rebuked
+his satisfaction with a sudden threat. A step sounded coming up the
+gravel.
+
+His temperamental coolness and presence of mind never stood a test
+better. He stood up, raised each stone in quick succession, and placed
+them swiftly, carefully, and silently beneath the coverlet of his
+companion's bed. She flung herself down beside them. He drew his own
+pallet into the corner from which the stones had been removed and lay,
+his face to the wall, the huddle of the bed clothes hiding the opening.
+A moment later a light shone through the window. The light of a lamp
+illuminated a wrinkled Italian face.
+
+The watcher blinked at them suspiciously, grunted, and then with a
+half-articulate expression of satisfaction, turned away. The light
+bobbed slowly off into the distance, flaring and guttering before the
+force of the wind. Inside the prison a sigh went up--a chorussed echo of
+relief.
+
+"Landon is taking no chances," said Aylmer, in a whisper. "We are to be
+visited, at intervals. That is evident."
+
+He heard something like the sound of a sob in the darkness.
+
+"It means defeat--this?" asked Claire. "Fate is setting her face against
+us. We are not even to have our chance!"
+
+"No!" he said grimly. "Fate is not against us. I feel it, I have
+believed it all along. And if she is, then it is our duty to defy her.
+After all, we can use the chief source of danger to defeat suspicion;
+that is easy."
+
+He rose cautiously and plucked the remaining stones from the hole. He
+placed them in his own bed; he arranged matters carefully. And then he
+made a motion towards the new-made opening.
+
+"Will you lead?" he said quietly. "Will you be the first to
+confront--Fate?"
+
+She gave a little gasp.
+
+"I?" she said, and hesitated, fear in her eyes.
+
+"You, if you will," he answered simply. "Make your way out and hide
+yourself in the nearest convenient shadow. Then, if he returns before I
+can join you, await me. If not--" He shrugged his shoulders. "I shall be
+at your heels."
+
+She still paused, and her fingers clenched and unclenched.
+
+"I did not expect--to be--separated," she breathed. "My strength--I did
+not realize it at first--is coming all from you."
+
+His hand went out into the darkness and touched her.
+
+"From now on, it will be used in your service," he said quietly. "For
+you and you alone." She felt the hand quiver. "Whether you ask it or
+not, whether I am to be all to you in the future, or nothing. It will be
+there--for your asking."
+
+And then, because the need of that strength came upon her with a force
+which she could not control, she gripped the protecting hand between her
+fingers and--Fate alone knows why--raised it to her lips. The next
+instant she had slipped past him in the darkness and was drawing herself
+through the opening. She rose to her knees, to her feet. She stood out
+upon the wind-swept earth, free. Free of the material prison behind her.
+Had she not laid upon herself new bonds? It was a thought too new, too
+indefinite, too strangely sweet. The tumult of her feelings was in
+accord with the tumult of the night.
+
+[Illustration: _She gripped the protecting hand between her fingers_]
+
+She stood, expectant, her ears alert for sounds. There was no grating of
+pebbles upon the path. But from the hole at her feet the faint rip of
+clothing torn against the angle of the stone. The next instant Aylmer
+had emerged, but did not rise. His hands, returning to the opening,
+still worked at something within. And then she gave a little gasp. A
+light shone at her feet. It made a tiny, yellow splash in the darkness
+and fell--on Aylmer's face.
+
+Terror paralyzed her; she stood as if turned to stone; her hands
+clenched into her clothing upon her breast. And Aylmer lay as
+motionless, the golden gleam falling directly into his eyes, which did
+not even blink.
+
+A sound broke the stillness--a sound which came from the far side of
+their prison--and the light disappeared. She heard footsteps which
+retreated; she recognized again the grunt which told of another
+inspection made to the inspector's content. But what had saved
+them--what?
+
+Aylmer rose and stood beside her. His hand gently gripped her elbow and
+drew her out into the roar and beat of the tempest. He headed inland;
+the path which the sentinel had taken was the one which led towards the
+shore.
+
+A minute later she breathed her question. And he laughed lightly in the
+darkness. The sound, incongruous as it seemed to her sense of
+ever-menacing fear, thrilled her strangely. If he could laugh, was not
+Fate laughing with him? Was there not a smile on the face of Hope?
+
+"I was only just through the hole when he came, when he flashed his
+lantern at what he supposed was my body, recumbent on the bed. I was
+holding up the bed clothes _from outside_; I had not had time to shove
+the stones back into place."
+
+She shuddered at the nearness of the hazard. Supposing the man had come
+at the very moment of escape--supposing?
+
+"But the light?" she protested. "The light shone upon your face!"
+
+He laughed again.
+
+"The bed clothes had a hole in them!" he said. "I held them up into the
+form of human shoulders, and through a rent his lantern beat directly on
+my face! He could not, of course, see me, but I got a good view of him.
+It was Luigi himself, this time. Has Fate been whispering to him, do you
+think? Has she made him suspicious?"
+
+She stumbled and caught at him to steady herself. He looked down in
+sudden, quick compunction.
+
+"It has been too much for you!" he said anxiously. "You are feeling
+faint?"
+
+"No!" she said quietly. "I am trying to think of it as a nightmare from
+which I shall wake directly, but it is real! Whenever that comes home to
+me it--it is a pain. Well, it will not be a long ordeal now, will it? We
+meet Fate at the landing stage, and she will give her decision. Can we
+unmoor the _Santa Margarita_ from inside the breakwater, or can we not?
+She will know."
+
+He nodded.
+
+"In five minutes we, too, shall know. We are circling for the Marina
+now. A couple of hundred yards and we shall be there!"
+
+They strode on into the darkness, with eyes and ears alert. They heard
+the battling of the waves against the stones of the tiny pier, but what
+they did not hear was the sound of singing cordage in the felucca's
+rigging.
+
+Aylmer halted with a sudden, muffled exclamation.
+
+"They have unshipped the mast!" he cried sharply, and this time she
+recognized, even in his voice, the note of defeat.
+
+She echoed his exclamation; she followed at his heels as he ran out upon
+the little breakwater. No, there had been no room for mistake. The great
+mast with its cross spar lay along the stone flags. The hull was snugly
+berthed alongside it, within the tiny harbor. The dingy? There was none;
+they had cast it loose when they fled from the torpedo boat through the
+island channel.
+
+For a moment he did not speak. He stood, looking silently at the
+dismantled boat, the raging sea, the swinging lights of a passing
+steamer. Then he turned and shook his head.
+
+"To step that mast into place again is beyond one man's strength," he
+said. "To fling ourselves out into that whirl on a mastless hull is to
+court death inevitably. What is the alternative? We could stand in front
+of the shed here, screened from view inland, and signal some passing
+vessel with flares, if we had the means of making a light. That would
+not be a good chance, but it has possibilities."
+
+"And I have matches!" she said eagerly. "I have my chatelaine still. I
+have even my purse yet. So far they have not robbed me."
+
+He turned as she spoke and without comment ran back across the shingle.
+He began to pluck handfuls of the dry, bent grass which found a sparse
+livelihood in the belt of sand between the shore and the vineyards. He
+returned, rummaged among the litter around the shed, broke up some
+stray pieces of driftwood into chips, and thrust a lighted match among
+the bents. A flame shot up, passed from the tinder to the wood, and
+within a minute was a well-lit fire. He twisted the remaining handfuls
+of grass into spirals, wetted them slightly in the sea, and held them to
+the flame.
+
+They burnt slowly with a red glow, as he swung them to and fro in the
+wind; in dashes, in dots, in circles, he spelled messages into the
+night, but no answering lantern or rocket came from the sea. And she
+watched apathetically. For her hope was dead again, the hand of Fate had
+closed. This was action; this helped them to avoid thinking, to avert
+anticipation, but success was a matter outside her calculations. The
+sense of nightmare closed down upon her again. The storm, the red
+flashes against the purple darkness, the wild unaccustomedness of
+everything heightened the illusion. But when would she wake? Ah, when
+would she wake?
+
+And then--she rubbed her eyes. A light--surely this was no freak of her
+fevered eyesight?--danced into view within a couple of hundred yards of
+the shore. For a moment it swung to the lift and surge of the waves
+alone, but a moment later it rose half a dozen feet into the air, and
+flashed and circled as the charred torch in Aylmer's hand was
+circling--an answer to their message of despair. She gasped with
+eagerness; she cried aloud.
+
+Was it fancy or did another cry reach them through the thunder of the
+waves?
+
+The light stayed motionless for an instant, and then swung towards them.
+Whatever vessel was bearing it had turned its prow towards the shore.
+Aylmer caught up another glowing handful of bents and ran out to the
+breakwater's end. Claire's heart beat in suffocating throbs as she
+followed.
+
+Again a cry reached them, and Aylmer waved his beacon vigorously. A
+sudden shaft of moonlight sank through a rift in the flying clouds.
+
+They saw it then--a dark mass which plunged and heaved among the white
+crests, and drifted nearer and nearer. There was no sail set, but they
+could see the rise and fall of a couple of great oars which steadied the
+boat as it advanced by drifting only. It was less than a cable length
+distant now, passing through the ring of rocks which guarded the harbor
+entrance.
+
+They held their breath. Ten seconds would do it, but ten seconds held an
+infinitude of possibilities. If the boat broached to, if its prow,
+indeed, deflected a couple of yards from the course, would not that give
+Fate a chance to fling her scorn upon their rising hopes? Their eyes
+were strained. Claire's hand was clenched till her nails seemed to sink
+into the flesh of her palm. And then she gave a sigh of relief. The boat
+had passed the outer rock, was heading straight for the inner harbor and
+the calm.
+
+Fate laughed harshly.
+
+A gust stormed in from the sea, caught the boat's prow, swung it, caused
+the port side rower to meet its strength too swiftly with his own. They
+heard a crack--heard it distinctly above the uproars of the gale. The
+oar had broken between the thole-pins; the rower was down.
+
+There was another crashing sound, louder this time, and menacing. A
+great sea raced beneath the laboring keel, lifted it, shook it, and
+flung it aside, full upon the rock. The white gleam of the new-made
+splinters reached them through the smother of the foam fifty yards away.
+
+Aylmer cried out and raced back along the stones. His hands plucked at
+the cordage which was folded about the felucca's mast, and drew out a
+rope. He came back at speed, unwinding the coils as he came. He thrust
+the loose end into her hands.
+
+"Get a purchase against a stone and then hold on--hold on!" he ordered.
+He flung off his coat.
+
+She cried out in protest; she clung to him.
+
+"No!" she cried. "No!"
+
+Very gently, very firmly, her hand was drawn aside. He bent over her;
+something touched faintly--very faintly--her lips. The next instant she
+was alone. He had leaped--far out into the grip of the tide.
+
+She caught her breath and clutched the rope; she flung herself down and
+wedged her limbs behind a boulder. Fate was relentless, she told
+herself, was cruel beyond even her darkest anticipations. For now her
+one support was to be denied her; she was to be left alone. She set her
+lips grimly. No, she would never see Aylmer again, but she would defy
+Fate! She was to be crushed, but she would go down fighting; she would
+be worthy of herself--and of him.
+
+The vagrant shaft of moonlight was gone again; the darkness was
+well-nigh impenetrable. The rope swung between her fingers unstraining.
+The minutes passed one by one; the tension of expectancy plucked at her
+nerves; she shivered, but not with cold. Even if it was the worst that
+was to come upon her she wanted to know--to know.
+
+The rope grew taut.
+
+It was as if an electric shock thrilled her. She braced herself against
+the stone, and her muscles tightened; slowly, using her strength to its
+utmost but with steady effort, she began to haul it in foot by foot. It
+came heavily but unceasingly, the coils unwinding fathom after fathom
+at her side.
+
+And then the strain ceased as suddenly as it had begun. A voice hailed
+her out of the darkness, almost at her feet. A dark bulk rose at the
+breakwater's edge.
+
+Aylmer staggered towards her and laid something on the stones--something
+which stirred uneasily but unavailingly, clogged, as it seemed, by the
+weight of its sodden clothing.
+
+She knelt beside it. She brushed the lank hair from a dripping face.
+
+Aylmer waved her back.
+
+"There is another!" he shouted. "Hold on if you can! Hold on!" and so
+plunged back into the surf. For the second time she braced herself to
+endure the strain--to wait--to agonize with expectation. And again Fate
+played with her, racked her between hope and fear, drew out the strain
+and then, as suddenly, relaxed it. Aylmer crept out upon the stones,
+gasping, doggedly clinging to a new burden.
+
+This time it was the bearer who staggered and fell, the burden who rose
+unsteadily, and peered into his rescuer's face.
+
+She dropped upon her knees beside him. Pale, clean-cut ascetic features
+were lifted to hers. Two dark brown eyes inspected her with startled
+incredulity.
+
+And then the man rose and--the act was instinctive, it was
+obvious--doffed his hat.
+
+"Signora," he said in Italian. "Signora! This is Salicudi, is it not? I
+am at a loss--I do not understand."
+
+For a moment she hesitated, looking at him. The long black garment which
+clung about him reached to his feet. Suddenly she recognized it, and,
+with recognition, a little cry escaped her. It was a _soutane_. And
+this was no sailor. She was confronted by a priest.
+
+As she opened her lips to find a reply, something clattered behind her;
+something rushed, calling upon the names of innumerable saints, out of
+the darkness, and seized her shoulder. A harsh voice rang into the
+echoes of the night.
+
+"To me--to me, all of you! They are escaping! Blood of My Lady, the
+prisoners are loose!"
+
+The man in the soutane whirled fiercely upon the newcomer. And as he
+turned the moon broke through the scurry of the drift and fell upon the
+group in cold brilliance.
+
+"Prisoners!" The voice was incredulous, wrathful, and above all full of
+command. "Prisoners! You speak of--whom?"
+
+The hand upon Claire's shoulder dropped. Her captor fell away as if
+struck by a physical blow.
+
+"Padre Sigi!" he stammered, and his voice was convincing of his
+amazement. "Padre Sigi!"
+
+The other nodded imperiously.
+
+"Padre Sigismondi," he agreed. "At your service, my good Luigi. At your
+service!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+LUIGI'S HOSPITALITY
+
+
+The smuggler's eyes expressed the limits of amazement. He stared at the
+newcomer. He turned his glance to Aylmer, as if he sought information
+there. He brought it back and focussed it upon the dripping _soutane_.
+He made inarticulate noises of incredulity; he flung up his hands with
+gestures of bewilderment.
+
+"You arrive--how, reverend father?" he cried. "What have you used? The
+wings of a bird, the fins of a fish?"
+
+"The eyes of a God-fearing priest," retorted Padre Sigismondi. "I saw
+signals being flashed from your island. With Emmanuele here," he pointed
+to the dripping figure which still lay upon the stones, "I was passing
+your abode of sin on my way to Stromboli. I had, in fact, no choice--I
+was being blown there. I saw the signals, I say, but read no meaning in
+them. Some unconfessed wretch needs extreme unction, say I to myself,
+and steered among the teeth of your reefs. One of our sweeps broke at a
+critical moment. This cavalier here leaped in to our rescue. I have not
+properly thanked him yet because I am awaiting explanation of the words
+I heard as you thrust yourself upon us. Prisoners, did you say? It must
+be a cataclysm of morality which has made you a gaoler or a judge, my
+wonderful Luigi."
+
+The smuggler shivered and blenched.
+
+"This man and this woman are in a sense prisoners," he allowed. "They
+are not on good terms with our other--guests. We have had to restrain
+their liberties."
+
+Padre Sigismondi regarded him fixedly. The unfortunate Luigi's tongue
+protruded with nervousness; his cheek muscles twitched. The priest
+shrugged his shoulders as he turned to Aylmer.
+
+"I arrive unceremoniously," he smiled, "but not inopportunely, it seems.
+May I have your version of the extraordinary circumstances in which I
+find the Signora and yourself, Signor?"
+
+Aylmer smiled back at him.
+
+"They are simple enough, father," he answered. "We are prisoners; there
+is no need for our friend here to beat about the bush. At the
+instigation of--of a certain enemy of ours, in whose pay the good Luigi
+finds himself, we were kidnapped from the port of Melilla and brought
+here. It was our signals you saw. May I add my profound regrets at the
+misfortune you experienced in answering them?"
+
+"The Church is a boat to the bad, but possibly a gainer in
+righteousness," said the other. "I may be the means of preventing some
+irretrievable sin on the part of these islanders. You were being held to
+ransom, do I understand?"
+
+The dripping figure at his feet stirred and rose weakly to a standing
+posture. A cackle of laughter came from between the chattering teeth.
+
+"The gaol-bird as gaoler--eh, but that is a rib-rending jest, Luigi. You
+have imagination, _amico_, imagination and, it seems, opportunity. You
+will go far!"
+
+The sailor turned his wrinkled face on the abashed smuggler; his white
+teeth flashed a prodigious smile. He seemed to find nothing
+disconcerting in the situation, but desired to show quickness in seizing
+its points of humor.
+
+"He will certainly go far, my good Emmanuele," agreed Padre Sigismondi,
+drily. "As far as the penal station on Procida if I am not hugely
+mistaken, or unless he shows a most improbable repentance. What have we
+here? Other warders in this private penitentiary?"
+
+Footsteps clattered along the tiny causeway. With a rush, half a dozen
+figures swept up to them through the moonlight, Landon at their head.
+This was the answer to Signor Luigi's frantic shouts.
+
+The rush wavered, hesitated, came to a halt. The islanders recognized
+the grim, aggressive form in the _soutane_ with sharp exclamations of
+amazement and alarm. Landon, without their experience, felt the
+impalpable infection of their fear. He, too, halted, staring
+mistrustfully at the priest and his companions.
+
+He shook Luigi by the elbow.
+
+"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded.
+
+The smuggler made a deferential outward movement of his palms.
+
+"It is a visit, an unexpected visit, from our--our vicar," he explained.
+"It is the Padre Sigi--Sigismondi, I should say."
+
+The padre stepped forward and spoke in crisp, imperturbable tones.
+
+"I am peripatetic confessor to these islands, Signor," he said. "There
+is a bitter need of six priests to each island, rather than six islands
+to a priest. It is an abode of wickedness, this. That, perhaps, has not
+been hidden from you?"
+
+Landon kept a moment's silence. Then he smiled.
+
+"I confess that I have not augmented its morality, in bulk, Signor," he
+said. "In fact, by adding the two who stand behind you to its
+population, I have done far otherwise. Instead of being where you find
+them, they should be under lock and key."
+
+"Why?" demanded the priest, laconically.
+
+"Because they robbed me," answered Landon. "Because, for wicked purposes
+of their own, they took from me--not gold, but what is beyond the price
+of gold or buying--my only son."
+
+"You accuse them of--kidnapping?" The good man's voice was coldly
+incredulous.
+
+Landon made a gesture of assent.
+
+"Of that and of attempted murder. They hired Moorish desperadoes to
+attack me, to ride me down."
+
+"And you have made of yourself not only prosecutor, but judge, jury, and
+keeper of their prison?"
+
+"These things happened in Africa, outside civilized jurisdiction. Was I
+to lack justice when it lay in the hollow of my hand?"
+
+"Are there no consular courts? If not, you cannot bring your private
+cause to private verdict in the dominions of the King of Italy, however
+bad his title to the throne."
+
+"Your reverence is a Legitimist?" grinned Landon.
+
+"In every sense of the word, Signor. My sense of legitimacy finds your
+arguments unsound."
+
+He looked at Claire with an apologetic bow.
+
+"And as a matter of fact, Signora, I have not heard your statement. How
+does it vary from this gentleman's? Or does it, perhaps, corroborate
+it?"
+
+She looked at him very steadily.
+
+"The man to whom you have been talking," she said slowly, "is, I think,
+Signor, the worst man whom God permits to live."
+
+He made a little gesture of protest.
+
+"You have suffered at his hands--is that it? But your sentence is too
+sweeping a one, is it not? Surely, Signora, surely?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"No!" she said determinedly. "Traitor, forger, thief--we know him to be
+all these. And last, but not least, murderer. A murderer of souls. I do
+not know if he has taken a fellow creature's life, but for five years he
+racked into the numbness of despair the soul of my sister, who was his
+wife."
+
+He made a tiny exclamation of sympathy; he held up his hand as if he put
+away from him a spectre of evil.
+
+He looked back to Landon.
+
+"You have heard, Signor?" he said.
+
+"I have heard," said Landon, easily. "As a tale it has no originality
+and therefore little interest for me. I have heard it a hundred times.
+Your reverence found fault, a moment back, with my self-assumed status
+of judge. Are you going to borrow the cloak which you do not permit me
+to wear? You have heard both sides. To what proof can you refer a
+decision?"
+
+The long, lean figure drew itself up very rigidly.
+
+"I am a sinful man myself, Signor. I make no decisions. But I have been
+appealed to, as I understand, by those whom I find in your power. I
+shall not permit your restraint of them to continue. You can refer any
+grievance you have against them to properly constituted tribunals over
+there." He lifted his arm and pointed south to where storm and night hid
+Sicily.
+
+He turned to Luigi.
+
+"Emmanuele and I are, as you see, sodden to the skin. It may reach your
+great intelligence, by degrees, that we need warmth and refreshment."
+
+The smuggler made an apologetic gesture.
+
+"But certainly, Reverenza. There is in the house a fire. My poor
+provisions are at your service."
+
+The priest looked towards Claire with another courtly doffing of his
+hat.
+
+"And you, Signora, and you, Signor, will add to my felicity by sharing
+both with me?"
+
+She looked at him gravely.
+
+"They have not starved us; we had food a couple of hours ago," she said.
+"But your company, here and to the mainland, is a boon straight from the
+hand of God."
+
+He inclined his head in assent.
+
+"I am His servant, Signora," he said. "I thank Him for permitting me to
+serve Him, in serving you. Shall we make our way to the house? The hour
+must be close on midnight."
+
+He made a motion towards the path. He looked imperturbably at Landon,
+who, with Muhammed, still stood astride it.
+
+"You appear to be blocking the lady's way, Signor," he said. "Not
+intentionally, I dare to hope."
+
+Landon shrugged his shoulders and drew aside.
+
+"On the contrary, your reverence. Not for worlds would I stand between
+you and refreshment--and sleep."
+
+He looked at Muhammed with a half-sardonic, half-inquiring gaze as he
+spoke. And there was a faintly emphasized inflection on the last two
+words.
+
+The Moor looked back at him impassively, and then drew aside with an
+obsequious droop of the head.
+
+But to Claire and, to a less extent to Aylmer, there was a queer,
+indefinite sense of something which impended--something which racked
+them with suspicion in the attitude of those about them. Landon's
+surrender was too facile; Luigi's deference too pliant; Muhammed's
+apathetic eyes were never less convincing of guilelessness. When they
+reached the cottage, and stood with Padre Sigismondi before the blaze in
+the great open hearth and watched the quick preparations which were
+being made to improvise a meal, the unreality of their surroundings
+seemed to grow in significance. No one interfered with them; no one even
+noticed them. Luigi set the table; Muhammed busied himself with the
+coffee-pot; Landon held the father's dripping garments to the blaze
+while their owner assumed a sailor's trousers and jersey in an adjoining
+room. It was too incredible, this sudden turning of tables. They looked
+at each other doubtfully.
+
+Their speculations received a sudden interruption. The door opened to
+admit Miller.
+
+He was half dressed. He blinked--it was apparent that he and sleep had
+parted company a short half minute before.
+
+"I heard noises," he said, and then his glance fell upon the two who
+stood near the fireplace, side by side. His usual phlegm seemed to
+desert him. He gave an exclamation.
+
+"You!" he cried. "You!"
+
+He wheeled towards Landon.
+
+"Will you explain?" he cried harshly. "What is happening?"
+
+"I entertain guests--a small, but select, family party," grinned Landon.
+
+The gray man stared at him with still unappeased surprise. Then,
+suddenly, his face cleared. He looked at Claire; he looked on beyond her
+to Aylmer.
+
+"You have met his terms? You see the hopelessness of it all; you have
+been wise?"
+
+His voice was smooth, now, and had lost its harsh tones of amazement. He
+purred his approbation.
+
+Aylmer laughed.
+
+"We have been wise, my dear Miller," he agreed. He laughed again as
+Padre Sigismondi briskly entered the room. He had the aspect of an
+ascetic but experienced mariner in his new garb. He bowed to Miller
+courteously but inquiringly. The inquiry, it was to be noticed, was
+directed in part towards Aylmer and his companion.
+
+But Aylmer offered no introduction. He drew forward a chair, and placed
+it in front of the fire.
+
+"A good roasting after your immersion? Let me prescribe that," he said.
+
+The priest looked at him and then gave a cry of commiseration.
+
+"But you yourself, Signor--you remain in your sodden clothes?"
+
+"For a very simple reason, father," said Aylmer, smiling. "I was taken
+prisoner, but not my luggage. I stand up in my belongings."
+
+The house began to resound with the recriminations which the priest
+addressed to Luigi. Why had he not provided the cavalier with a suitable
+change of raiment while his own clothes dried? Why had he not done this;
+why had he not done that?
+
+The smuggler ran to and fro distractedly. A jersey came from one press.
+A shirt from another. A cupboard supplied trousers; a deplorable collar
+which had had no recent acquaintance with a laundry was even offered and
+declined. Aylmer retired into the adjoining room, and Landon, on his
+return, with imperturbable aplomb received and began to dry the wet
+clothes he had taken off. Miller reviewed these proceedings with
+unqualified amazement. Offered no key to the position, he proceeded to
+probe for one.
+
+"Your reverence has voyaged far?" he hazarded.
+
+"More miles than I care to remember, Signor," said the other,
+courteously. "But ever, alas, in a circle. My peregrinations have been
+bounded, ever since my ordination, by Naples on the north and Palermo or
+Messina in the south. I see much earth and sky and water, especially the
+latter, but I add nothing to geography. I am amphibious, that is all."
+
+His "ordination"? The gleam of discovery woke in Miller's eyes. A
+priest, was it? But the presence of Aylmer and Miss Van Arlen--how was
+that to be explained? And how far had the newcomer gauged the situation.
+
+"Your reverence finds in us unexpected additions to your flock," he
+said. "The population of Salicudi has increased since you last visited
+it."
+
+"To my very natural satisfaction," said Sigismondi, imperturbably. He
+looked at the steaming bowl of polenta and the coffee-pot which Luigi
+had set upon the table. Emmanuele came in, wrapped in a sheepskin coat
+and grinning at the food expectantly. His master greeted him with a nod.
+"It appears that we are to feast and feast alone, my son," he said.
+"These friends of ours insist on having dined two hours ago. May the
+Blessed bless to us this refreshment."
+
+He seated himself and began to eat slowly, but with relish.
+
+"Heat is a great tonic," he remarked reflectively. "The contents of this
+bowl and, above all, of this admirable coffee-pot, will erase the
+remembrance of the discomforts of the night. And then sleep, but not too
+much of it. Luigi, my friend, we must be off at dawn."
+
+The smuggler's eyebrows rose into arcs.
+
+"How, Reverence?" he exclaimed. "At dawn, and whither, if you please?"
+
+"By way of Celsa, where an infant awaits baptism--and my friends, I dare
+to hope, will excuse the short delay--to Messina. Where else, my good
+Luigi? That surely is the place where your guests can most conveniently
+adjust their misunderstandings."
+
+The smuggler shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I am at your service, father," he said, and looked vacantly at the
+opposite wall. But the tail of his eye, Aylmer noted, was on Landon. Was
+there a message, or inquiry, in it?
+
+"All of us," said Landon, smoothly, "must find your proposition a very
+practical one. May I hasten to add my approval of it?"
+
+He looked smilingly at Aylmer, at Claire, lastly at Muhammed. The
+Moor--was it Aylmer's fancy?--answered with a tiny nod. There was
+sarcasm in this glance of Landon's; there was menace; there was--so
+Aylmer told himself--malignant triumph.
+
+Padre Sigismondi nodded absently. He presented his coffee-cup to the
+Moor to be refilled, and as the brown liquid ran from the spout, watched
+it with a slow, stolid abstraction. His mental alertness seemed to be
+relaxing with physical refreshment. He offered no further remarks; he
+plied his spoon upon the polenta slowly, and yet more slowly.
+
+Suddenly Emmanuele, the sailor, dropped his cup in the act of taking a
+more than usually copious draught. He looked stupidly at the coarse
+crockery as it broke upon the floor.
+
+Sigismondi shook a finger at him, a finger which, somehow, he seemed to
+have under no proper command. "Careless one!" he mumbled. "Careless one!
+Where are your manners?" And then, suddenly, as if he heaved back a
+weight, he rose unsteadily to his feet. He threatened Luigi with his
+clenched fist.
+
+"Traitorous dog!" he cried, and fell senseless to the floor.
+
+His companion stared at him stupidly, plunged forward as if to bring him
+aid, and then fell, too, at his feet. The pair lay where they had
+fallen, unmoving.
+
+At the back of the room Landon broke out into pleasant laughter.
+
+Aylmer darted forward and bent to shake Sigismondi fiercely by the
+shoulder. Claire cried to him warningly.
+
+Too late!
+
+Landon and Luigi had flung themselves upon him from behind. Muhammed had
+dropped a looped cord across his shoulders. There was a moment's
+confusion--the corner of the table smashed under a chance blow--and then
+stillness. Lashed with cords into rigidity, Aylmer lay upon the planks,
+and Landon, gazing down, spat upon his upturned face.
+
+"You clever fool!" he derided. "To think to have cornered me--me!"
+
+He looked rapidly at his watch and turned to Luigi.
+
+"It is five hours to dawn," he said. "Where is it we are to take them?
+There is no possibility for delay?"
+
+The smuggler threw out his hands with an air of fatalism.
+
+"The headquarters of the Society--there is no other place!" he said.
+"With this wind, four hours or less will see us there. They will charge
+a commission; you will have to bear with that. But we shall have perfect
+privacy and, if you will, perfected means of dealing with this man's
+obstinacy. And there will be adepts, who will give you their assistance
+for the pleasure of the thing."
+
+Landon nodded.
+
+"Do you hear, my friend, do you hear?" he cried, thrusting his foot
+against Aylmer's cheek. "You have wriggled well in my coils--I grant you
+that. You have twisted and, for the moment, escape seemed open--wide
+open--before you. But against me? No one prevails there, no one!"
+
+"One may--yet."
+
+The voice was Claire's. Landon wheeled towards her.
+
+"That shows a very determined optimism, sister-in-law," he said. "And
+who, if the knowledge is not privileged?"
+
+"God," she said quietly, and met his eyes unflinchingly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+FATE'S FINAL WORD
+
+
+Storm, darkness, despair--these had been the sole comrades for the two
+who lay bound in their old quarters in the _Santa Margarita's_ lazaret.
+Within a few minutes of the moment in which Padre Sigismondi had
+succumbed to the islander's treacherous hospitality, those who had
+sought his protection had been prisoners once more, and the felucca's
+mast had been stepped anew. For three hours it had bent before the
+strength of the northern wind--the hot, oppressive breath which seemed
+to blow no longer from Nature's lips but in her very face. For it was an
+unnatural wind--in temperature, in the quarter from which it came, in
+dampness. The rigging slackened in the humid gusts, but the great sail
+bellied out magnificently. They had torn across the broad waste of
+waters at racing speed. Captain Luigi announced with legitimate pride
+that they had come a matter of five and fifty kilometres. The land
+loomed up before them mountainously a short five miles away.
+
+Landon peered into the darkness. Lights shone far to the left of their
+position--lights in rows, lights white, lights dusky orange, and far
+beyond the main mass of the illumination one red star which winked in
+solemn intervals.
+
+"Messina," explained Luigi, tersely. "The red beam? That is the Faro."
+
+"And we land where?" asked Landon.
+
+"Here, if the Holy Mother gives us her protection," said the skipper,
+and pointed straight ahead. "In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred there
+is no difficulty about it. The port police--there are three of them--are
+cousins of my own and, it is needless to say, controlled by the Society.
+In fifteen minutes you will see."
+
+"The hundredth chance?" said Landon. "That is--?"
+
+"The Carbineers, Signor. Or rather one Carbineer--Sergeant Pinale, who
+has been at the bottom of many an honest contrabandist's misfortune.
+_Brutta bestia!_ He will not keep to any ordered sequence in his goings
+and comings. But the men of the Society will know. If they answer our
+signals, all is well."
+
+Landon looked at him debatingly.
+
+"Who is to answer signals at this hour of the night, my good Luigi? Your
+colleagues will be in their more or less virtuous beds."
+
+The smuggler smiled a superior smile.
+
+"The Society never sleeps, Signor, and it has trained the men in its
+ranks to remember as much. High on the blank wall of hill above the port
+is a watch-tower, though only a private dwelling-house to all seeming.
+There is a need for the sons of the Mafia to have an open door into
+Sicily at any moment of the day or night."
+
+He called one of the hands to the tiller as he finished speaking and
+went forward. He came back, holding a ship's lantern. There were wings
+of glass on hinges on either side of it--one red, one green.
+
+He knelt and busied himself in lighting it in the shelter of the
+companion. The breeze had driven them right in under the shadow of the
+land by now. The steep above the shore seemed almost to overhang them.
+Here and there a faint oil lamp flickered along the Marina; a larger,
+nearer, and brighter gleam was evidence of a tiny jetty which was washed
+by waves which were dwindling under the protection of the land.
+
+Luigi lifted his lamp and held it clear of the companion. Rapidly he
+shut the green shield over the untinted glass, as rapidly opened it
+again, shut the red wing twice in quick succession, and finally left the
+green signal closed.
+
+Landon's eyes probed the darkness. His companion stood silent, his face
+raised towards the hill. There was no apprehension in his attitude, only
+expectancy.
+
+Quite suddenly it seemed that the wind had dropped. The shelter of the
+shore might account for this in part, Landon mused, but surely not
+altogether. It was weird, in a sense, this abrupt alternation to perfect
+stillness after the uproars of the outer seas, but it was not
+unpleasant. It gave one a sense of relaxation; but the heat, untempered
+by the faintest breath of air, was incredibly oppressive. December was
+aping the temperatures of August.
+
+Luigi sighed contentedly and spoke.
+
+"All is well, Signor. It remains to get our merchandise ashore."
+
+Landon became aware of a blue speck of light in the darkness--a speck
+which wavered, grew to a suddenly unexpected point of brightness and
+disappeared. So quickly did it come and go, so evanescent was its
+effect, that none but those who searched for it would have been likely
+to give its appearance a second thought. It might have been caused by
+the passing of a candle behind one of the many panes of frosted glass
+which disfigure Italian villas in _villeggiatura_.
+
+Luigi gave an order. The two deck hands clutched the halliards. The sail
+was lowered. A moment later the anchor set the ripples herding towards
+the shore as it plunged into the calm below the jetty. Landon and his
+companion descended to the cabin.
+
+Stretched on a bunk was Miller, sleeping the sleep of the justly tired.
+He roused himself at their touch and sat up. He looked about him
+meditatively.
+
+"The wind has dropped, absolutely?" he said. "Since when?"
+
+"Half an hour ago. We are in port," said Landon. "We are ready to land,
+when you will."
+
+The gray man smoothed the creases in his gray coat.
+
+"When _I_ will?" he repeated. "I am a prisoner--the captive of your bow
+and spear." He smiled with sombre sarcasm.
+
+"That position is to be maintained?" asked Landon.
+
+"Naturally. Your cousin may make my continued residence in Gibraltar
+well-nigh impossible, otherwise."
+
+"My cousin?" Landon repeated the words with a certain doubtfulness. "He
+is my cousin," he said slowly, "and we sha'n't break one of his blood
+except in one way. It's the girl, remember, that is our strong suit.
+There's to be no bleating about that. To win, the trick has to be taken
+with her alone."
+
+Miller nodded woodenly.
+
+"If I had the inclination to interfere, I have not the power," he said.
+"Do you forget that I am a prisoner, like herself?"
+
+"Yes," said Landon, and there was more than doubt in his expression
+this time, there was suspicion. "I forget it all the time. I want your
+assurance that _you_ won't!"
+
+Miller made a gesture of assent.
+
+"Let's get on," he said. "I understand that it's within a couple of
+hours of dawn."
+
+For an instant Landon hesitated. Then, with Luigi at his heels, he
+entered the lazaret. Neither of them spoke. They bent and lifted Aylmer
+methodically, holding him by his shoulders and his lashed ankles. They
+bore him on deck. They gagged him with the cork float of a fishing-net
+and left him, stark and motionless as a log. They turned back to the
+cabin, and a minute later placed Claire Van Arlen beside him, as
+helpless as himself.
+
+The dingy--a new one, picked up in the island--was lowered. The
+prisoners were thrust beneath the seats. A deck hand and Muhammed took
+their places at the oars. Luigi steered; the child, half asleep and
+wrapped in a blanket, drowsed at his feet. Miller and Landon sat on the
+thwarts.
+
+The two rowers dipped their oars without splashing in long, slow
+strokes. The thole-pins were muffled with rags. The boat stole along in
+the shadow of the jetty into the darkness which hid the port. It was
+noiseless, ghost-like, this entry into the little haven. To the two dumb
+prisoners who lay along the bottom of the boat it was ominous of hope
+entirely lost.
+
+They stifled under the cloaks which hid them; the perspiration dripped
+from the rowers, despite the unhurried nature of their work. The weight
+of a dozen atmospheres seemed to have replaced the exhilarating breath
+which Sicily flings seaward from her sun-brimmed shores. Luigi, at the
+helm, gasped and passed his hand across his eyes.
+
+"Thunder in December! Not natural, Signor, but that is what we must
+expect. I suffocate. _Per Dio!_ The bay is an oven."
+
+He let the prow nose in towards the jetty. Moored boats began to appear
+dimly, right and left of them. The lamplight from the Marina showed an
+empty quay. Luigi steered for the shadow cast by a shed, and took the
+ground silently on a strand of mud and garbage.
+
+The deck hand drew in his oar and skipped nimbly ashore. Muhammed
+followed him. They both laid their hands upon the painter. They bent
+their backs to haul.
+
+Two shadows appeared right and left of them, shadows which seemed to
+have detached themselves from the framework of the shed. Something
+clicked. A yellow beam flared out, full on Luigi's face.
+
+He gasped, he yelled.
+
+"God's Mother--the Carbineers!"
+
+Landon leaped to his feet with a curse. He seized an oar; he thrust with
+all his strength at the mud. And at the same moment the two on the
+shore, struggling in their captor's hands, let fall the painter. The
+boat shot out stern foremost into deep water.
+
+From the shore came the sound of a struggle and then Muhammed's voice,
+shrill in explanation.
+
+"_Signori! Signori!_ I am not a contrabandist! I am a tourist; I can
+prove it; I wish to offer no resistance; I place myself in your hands,
+freely."
+
+There was a grim laugh, and then the yellow beam of light which had been
+withdrawn while the struggle proceeded, flung out its level rays again
+and illuminated the boat.
+
+"Surrender, Luigi!" shouted a stern voice. There was another click.
+"Surrender, _stupido_! I have you covered; I give you five seconds
+before I fire!"
+
+The shrill voice of the captured sailor reinforced the argument.
+
+"It is over--finished," he shouted pessimistically. "It is _Pinale_;
+there is nothing more to be done!"
+
+Luigi groaned and then flung up his hands.
+
+"I give in!" he cried, and burst into a storm of hysterical sobs. "It
+means Procida--this," he wept. "It means years in chains; it means half
+the rest of my life snatched from me." He turned and smote at Landon in
+the darkness. "I owe it to you, tempter!" he yelled. "Accursed of God,
+you led me into this!"
+
+Landon stumbled in his surprise and then leaped at him like a cat. There
+was a shrill scream from the child as the swaying pair rolled down upon
+the stern sheets, gripping, each of them, for the other's throat. The
+boat rocked violently.
+
+Again the stern command from the shore rang into the night. They gave it
+no heed. Animal rage possessed them; they were no longer men but beasts,
+fighting with hand and foot and knee, clawing, tearing, even biting as
+the chance of conflict brought Luigi's lips within reach of his
+assailant's cheek. They were lost to all human warning or control.
+
+It was no human interference which separated them.
+
+Fate played her hand--played it irresistibly, crushingly, played it with
+a vindictive completeness such as even she has never used since her grip
+fell upon her plaything--that toy of hers among a million million toys,
+and which we call our world.
+
+A roar, terrific, growing, menacing, filling the echoes, brimming the
+heavy air, rolling out across the still waters of the bay, thundered
+into the silence of the shore. The dim lamps upon the Marina shook;
+crash upon crash echoed from buildings which could not be seen, but
+which terror could picture in all the crude pigments of imagination and
+despair! Beside the boat a huge crack rent the jetty in twain. Stones,
+dashed from the crumbling buildings in the darkness, flung huge gouts of
+spray over the two who wrenched themselves apart in her stern, over
+their prisoners, over the child, who cried aloud in all the agony of
+childish fear.
+
+And then human voices joined the chorus--voices which expressed every
+intonation of panic, of the horror which is built upon amazement, of the
+unleashed emotions of men awaking to meet blindly the common hazards of
+life and confronting chaos, illimitable ruin, a sudden unbarring of the
+gates of Hell.
+
+The struggle in the boat ceased. Wild curses became, on Luigi's lips, a
+string of piteous appeals to the very saints whose names he had used a
+moment before to point his blasphemies. Miller and Landon grasped the
+oars.
+
+But even the terrors of earthquake do not wreck the discipline of
+Italy's Carbineers. The sergeant's warning was repeated thunderously.
+
+Miller screamed an assent, a surrender. Landon answered with an oath.
+The one endeavored to propel the boat shorewards, the other towards the
+sea. It spun between their efforts; they yelled and gesticulated madly.
+
+And again the sergeant's voice was heard, with a hundred other voices,
+appealing to a God whose mercy was surely turned away.
+
+For a moaning sound _tingled_ along the strand, and then silently, but
+with the speed of a cataract, the sea sank back from the shore.
+
+It plucked half a hundred boats from their anchorages; it gripped them
+down into its trough. For full thirty seconds they fled upon this
+monstrous tide of a tideless sea, hull crashing against hull, mast
+beating against mast, a wrecked wilderness of spars and rigging,
+tangled, coiled, the froth, the scum, as it were, upon that mighty
+crest. And behind them went the _Santa Margarita's_ dingy, with bound
+and free in equal helplessness.
+
+Then, as if the sluice of some Cyclopean lock had been shut, the mighty
+mill-race halted and a mountain grew upon the face of the deep. Huge,
+black, awesome, it swung itself up, swelled higher and higher, hung
+through an æon-long moment of horror, and then rolled back whence it had
+come. And the menace of its coming left no tiniest coign of foothold for
+hope in its path. Irresistible and relentless it moved along to destroy
+every barrier of nature, every man-built obstacle with its might. Its
+foam-plumed crest roared over the quayside and the Marina five fathoms
+deep.
+
+Like a chip upon the surface of a torrent which suddenly hastens to the
+brink of the cascade, the boat and its burden of lives was snatched
+along. The three who stood and gripped its gunwale saw the broad expanse
+of the Marina before them, saw it seem to sink as they themselves rose
+upon the flood, saw how they raced across it twenty feet above the level
+of its flags. And they saw more--saw it with eyes which seemed to sear
+their brains with anticipation, with despair.
+
+This!
+
+A long, irregular, deep-fronted row of dwellings, square to the sea,
+square to the reeling ridge of ocean which was sweeping upon them as the
+gust sweeps down upon the far-flung autumn leaves.
+
+They called aloud in chorus; they challenged Fate with their despair.
+And Fate replied.
+
+The waters reached the walls; the huge sheet of spray shot high into the
+night. But the dingy passed on uncrushed.
+
+An alley opened before them--an alley through which they shot on the
+roaring tide into the square beyond, sank down as the dwindling waters
+sank and with their last effort of destruction reached, and were borne
+into an arched opening girt about with trees. And then that, in its
+turn, became a ruin of plaster and planks and stone. The wave completed
+what the earthquake had all too thoroughly begun. The roof and walls
+crashed down into a grim monument upon a living grave.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+DAWN COMES
+
+
+Out of the darkness of insensibility consciousness came slowly into
+being in Aylmer's brain, but memory lagged to join it. He was
+bound--that he realized, and his teeth were immovable upon a gag. The
+darkness was absolute and so, for the first few minutes through which
+his senses woke, was the silence. He could feel rough slabs of wood
+which cased his body in. He shifted uneasily and beat his temple upon a
+plank. The sweat of terror broke out upon his brow. He was buried alive!
+God help him! The worst that could happen to a living soul was his
+sentence from the lips of Fate!
+
+Something whimpered in the darkness; something stirred beside his feet.
+
+In a flash came remembrance. The awful moment of disaster through which
+he had been carried, blind, speechless, and bound, became a picture in
+his brain--a picture the more vivid in that actuality had been hidden
+from him and imagination had supplied details beyond the compass of the
+real. He stirred afresh, he writhed, his bound wrists beat out upon the
+air.
+
+The whimpers ceased and words followed--words in a child's voice shaken
+by fear. A trembling hand found Aylmer's sleeve, crept up it to his
+cheek, and halted there in miserable hesitation.
+
+"It's me--it's me!" whispered the voice. "Can't you speak? Oh, can't you
+speak to me?"
+
+And then the wandering fingers found the linen band which bound the gag
+into place and was fastened behind Aylmer's head.
+
+"Is that why?" said the child in eager discovery. "Is _that_ why?"
+
+The band cut into Aylmer's cheek as the knot was twitched with all the
+awkwardness of haste, but a moment later the pressure ceased. He spat
+the gag from between his teeth.
+
+"Little John!" he cried. "Little John! Are you hurt? are you able to
+stand?"
+
+The boy clutched him with a sort of desperation of relief.
+
+"Oh, you _can_ speak--you _can_ speak!" he shouted joyously. "My head
+aches and my shoulder doesn't move right, but I can stand. I can reach
+nothing above my head--or right--or left."
+
+There was a creaking of timber as he moved, stretching his hands, as was
+evident, into the black emptiness about the boat. Aylmer's bound wrists
+were lifted to reach him.
+
+"Pick at them--as you did before, little John," he said. "Loose me, so
+that we can search the darkness together."
+
+The child's breath came in zealous pants as he tugged and pulled, but
+the knots were tightly lashed and sodden with the sea. And his haste was
+a handicap; he plucked and twisted ineffectually. And finally he
+overbalanced himself and slipped.
+
+He gave a cry of pain.
+
+"I'm hurted--I'm bleeding!" he sobbed. "I fell against something that
+cut!"
+
+Aylmer's heart stood still. If the fall had injured the child severely,
+if it had disabled him, if he were to lose consciousness--was this
+horror of helplessness to be added to those which already had them in
+their grip? He stretched out his arms towards the sound of the sobbing,
+and this, as he did so, suddenly ceased.
+
+Panic gripped him, only to be fought down. Slowly, and with painful
+effort, he twisted himself round in the darkness till his bound wrists
+found as their goal the child's cap which still covered his untidy mane
+of curls. And these were wet and sticky.
+
+The reason was not far to seek. The baling slipper lay below little
+John's temple--the baling slipper mended with a rough strip of tin. And
+this had cut through cap and curls, down to the bone. It had finished
+what terror had begun. The boy had fainted.
+
+Aylmer's first impulse was to use the whole of his tethered strength in
+bringing consciousness back to the child--to what was, he considered,
+his only chance of freedom. A moment later chance pointed a quicker
+road. His knuckles met and were scarred by the frayed edge of the tin.
+He gave an exclamation of impatience at his own dulness. What would cut
+him would cut his bonds. Crouching down he managed to grip the slipper
+between his knees and steady it there. And then he rasped his lashings
+upon its edge.
+
+A minute sufficed, or even less. The cord frayed, gave strand by strand,
+and broke apart with a twang. He gasped with relief and fell to work
+upon his ankles. As these bonds loosened and fell away in their turn, he
+stood up, rising slowly and stretching his hands above his head. He
+touched nothing.
+
+He sighed not only with relief, this time, but with a faint tinge of
+hope. And then he bent, felt his way past the still motionless child,
+and touched, by chance's guidance, Claire Van Arlen's hair. And he gave
+another exclamation of self-encouragement. For her cheek was warm.
+
+He plucked the gag from her lips; his hands were already at her wrists
+as she uttered his name. He thrilled to the anxiety in her voice.
+
+"You?" she asked anxiously. "You? You were uninjured. I heard you speak
+and--and, it seemed, to me that you--_flagged_--that you--were not you!"
+
+"Yes," he answered quietly. "I had not found you then. I did not know--I
+do not know it yet--how far you yourself were unhurt."
+
+His fingers were unlashing her feet now. He heard her stir into a
+sitting posture and, as her feet were freed, felt her rise to her knees.
+Instinct bade him thrust out a hand as she did so, and she rocked up
+against it. Her energy had been more than her strength; she leaned
+against him panting.
+
+For a full minute he held her, feeling her pulses throb against his,
+fanned by her breath that panted past his cheek, one hand warm within
+his own, one upon his shoulder. And through the darkness he sent out his
+appeal to Fate. If the grim goddess had no farther favors in her store
+for him, let her hand close upon him there. Might there be no more weary
+struggles; might the end find him and the girl whose hand clung to his
+in this intimate protection at once. Let death come in that moment, and
+he would ask no more.
+
+Fate gave no answer and the moment passed.
+
+She gave a little sob and, still holding him, staggered to her feet.
+
+"It is the stiffness, and the long hours bound. And the
+anxiety--for--for you!" she murmured. "I am unhurt, indeed I am unhurt.
+I have scarcely so much as a bruise upon me. And my chatelaine? That is
+still at my waist. I have--have matches, if the sea water has spared
+them!"
+
+Light! Could they pierce this wall of darkness; could they actually hope
+to see how and where they were caged? He scarcely dared to breathe as he
+heard her silver chain of trinkets tinkle, and heard the rasp of the
+match-head on the box. The red spark sputtered against the blackness and
+then flared into yellow being as the wax took flame. They looked about
+them with more than curiosity. With awe.
+
+High above their head was an arch of masonry, massively mortised,
+curving from a wall to a row of squat, solid pillars; and these last
+flanked a pile of heaped rubble and stone. They were in a passage some
+twenty feet long, closed at each end as the unwalled side was closed by
+the wreck of the house above. It was a cloister. And the open courtyard
+which it had rimmed was now a stupendous rubbish heap, massed high above
+their heads with ruin.
+
+They looked down. They still stood in the boat, and at Aylmer's feet the
+child was huddled in unconsciousness, the blood still welling slowly
+from the cut on his brow. Beyond them something indefinite and
+unrecognizable lay in a dark heap upon the flags.
+
+Aylmer stepped forward and bent over it.
+
+It was the body of a man, clothed in the dark, red-striped uniform of
+the Carbineers. His lips were grim and set. His right hand still
+clutched the breach of a rifle. And at his belt was a lantern--the glass
+broken, but the tin intact. Aylmer's hands trembled as they fell upon
+this prize.
+
+He wheeled back to his companion and touched the flame against the wick.
+There was a moment's suspense, and then they sighed in chorus. For the
+oil was unspilt. For a time, at least, darkness was not to be among the
+terrors which menaced them.
+
+Claire knelt and pulled the child upon her knee. She stanched the blood;
+she dropped her handkerchief into the little pool of sea water which was
+fast draining through the wrenched seams of the boat, and gently laved
+the unconscious face. Little John stirred drowsily, opened his eyes
+reluctantly, and looked up with wonder into her face.
+
+He put his hand up weakly to his temple.
+
+"It's--it's queer--and--and hurty," he whispered. "Muhammed? He would
+make it well."
+
+She pulled him to her tenderly.
+
+"Does it hurt badly?" she asked. "Muhammed hasn't come to us--yet."
+
+He looked wonderingly around him.
+
+"The house--opened--and let us right in," he mused. "We came up on the
+sea--right up--as fast as a train. And Dad? Dad was with us then."
+
+She looked up questioningly at Aylmer. And he had gathered up the dead
+Carbineer's cloak and was arranging it against the stern. He made a
+motion towards it.
+
+"Sleep is all the medicine we can give him," he advised. "Let him rest.
+Meanwhile we must use the light while we have it."
+
+She nodded quickly and laid the child gently down. He smiled at her
+drowsily again, whispered a half-distinguishable appeal to be told when
+the Moor "came back," and then nature's healing hand closed over his
+eyes. He slept--the deep, dead sleep of exhaustion.
+
+Aylmer raised the lamp. Together they paced the length of their prison.
+
+The gray flags were bare except where the Carbineer's body lay. With a
+little gesture of compassion, Aylmer straightened the stiffening limbs,
+and covered the stern, unfaltering face with the dead man's
+handkerchief. And then they passed on, to confront the hill of rubble
+which closed the cloister's end. And here they halted, as they looked
+down.
+
+Claire shuddered.
+
+A gray sleeve emerged from the stones and an open hand seemed to appeal
+for the help which came all too late. Aylmer dragged fiercely at the
+ruined wall. A block or two became unseated. These shouldered out others
+to rumble at their feet.
+
+A gray-clad body became exposed. They looked at it, instinct preparing
+them to recognize what they saw. Battered and disfigured though it was,
+they knew it for Miller's face.
+
+For a moment they kept silence, looking at it fixedly. The eyes were
+open, but death had wiped out from them the imperturbability which they
+had held through life. Fear had gripped the gray man at the last. Horror
+had been with him--even panic.
+
+Aylmer leaned down and covered the fear-haunted eyes.
+
+"He has gone, and taken his mystery with him," he said. "What his life
+was we shall never ascertain. What led him to betray us? That is beyond
+our learning. It may have been no more than fear and the desire to save
+himself. I think there was something behind it all that has escaped us,
+but"--he shrugged his shoulders as he looked about him--"what does it
+matter now?"
+
+He held the lantern at arm's length as he spoke, and looked searchingly
+round. The gray stone ringed them in relentlessly. Was there any
+expedient in which they could find a challenge to the arbitrary decree
+of Fate? He saw none.
+
+The girl at his side watched him. And then her eyes met his. And as he
+spoke his voice was strangely gentle.
+
+"God interfered between Landon and his evil purpose, as you said He
+would. Perhaps, who knows, He may have other mercies reserved for us.
+But in any case we must teach each other to be strong."
+
+She nodded gravely.
+
+"We are in His hands," she said, "and nothing can be as terrible as what
+was threatened us by that vile man. The boy is safe. I have the help of
+your presence. We must kill imagination with work."
+
+He looked about him again, doubtfully.
+
+"Work?" he questioned. "Have we the chance to work?"
+
+"Isn't it obvious," she said. "That is a courtyard. Above the ruins
+which brim it is the sky. If we use our strength and time to pluck a way
+through that to life again, we shall, at least, not think."
+
+He paced forward a yard or two and examined the heaped wreckage of
+plaster, wooden beams, and stones. He hesitated.
+
+"If we disturb it, there is just a chance of making our situation
+worse," he hazarded.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"No," she said significantly. "Not worse. God might answer us that way,
+and save us suspense. And we shall, at any rate, have defied Fate to the
+end."
+
+"Yes," he said. "In that I am with you; we will do our best--to the
+last. And if God's purpose falls upon us quickly, Claire, I thank Him
+here and now that He has permitted me to share this bitter cup with you,
+instead of draining that more bitter one which threatened an hour ago.
+At least I am not leaving you in Landon's hands, alone."
+
+"And I am not helpless while they work their vile wills upon you," she
+answered. "Fate has been cruel enough, but she has spared us that. The
+end? That is still her mystery. Let us forget it."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"There is much I can remember which will spare me that. What you have
+been and done for me these last wild days--my memory will occupy itself
+with that and hope--while I work to make hope true."
+
+And then, still smiling as if he had plumbed the eyes of Hope and found
+in them an answering smile, he laid the lantern on the flags and put his
+hands upon the barrier of ruin which faced him.
+
+He toiled vigorously but with caution. As he rolled the larger blocks
+from their resting-place, he was quick to notice and to support the
+beams or flagstones which they had buttressed with their weight. And he
+used the first plank which tumbled out of the chaos as a lever upon its
+fellows. At his feet Claire worked vigorously, sweeping out the plaster
+which filled the openings as he made them, rolling aside the unseated
+stones to give him room, lending her lesser strength to aid his, when
+some task was trying his powers to the utmost.
+
+For a couple of hours they toiled silently, and a gap had been hewn into
+the debris--a gap which seemed to be ceaselessly filled as the
+accumulations rolled into it from above, but an opening, nevertheless,
+which spoke of progress, which showed a reward for effort, which even
+pictured, faintly and indistinctly, a vision of hope. If their strength
+lasted? Was there not a chance, a tiny, elusive, but possible chance?
+
+It was the remembrance that uninterrupted effort would fatigue them to a
+point where their strength would be taxed beyond recovery which made
+Aylmer at last call a halt. They went and sat beside the sleeping child.
+To economize the light, they extinguished the lamp.
+
+And then--they rubbed their eyes.
+
+A tiny beam of light, dim, faint, gray but distinguishable, was filtered
+down into their prison at the point where one of the cloister pillars
+reached an arch. It fell upon the flags in a little circle.
+
+Aylmer reached it in two strides. He gave an exclamation.
+
+"It is a pipe from the spouting of the roof," he cried. "I see the sky.
+I see the sky!"
+
+She was at his side in an instant. In her turn she looked up into the
+hollow of the tube, to see light. She gave a little gasp.
+
+"It's wonderful--wonderful!" she breathed. "Only that little way up--ten
+feet, twelve, perhaps, and freedom. And we are here!"
+
+"It means two things of infinite importance!" he rejoined. "Air and, in
+all probability, water. If the gutter which discharges into this is
+still intact, we shall receive the rain when it comes. And after
+earthquake it comes, invariably."
+
+She was not paying him attention. Her eye was still fixed below the tiny
+opening; she continued to look up as if the tiny disc of brightness
+fascinated her, as if she would drink draughts of the outer air thus
+delivered to them as if from an immense cistern.
+
+And then the emotion of sudden discovery illuminated her face.
+
+"We can signal!" she cried. "We can attract attention! We have only to
+thrust a rod up through that, and it will tell our tale. Surely there
+are rescuers at work by now; a whole city cannot be left to its fate!"
+
+His eyes glistened.
+
+"God sent that thought to you--God himself!" he cried. "We must have a
+rod; we must make one!" He turned and re-lit the lantern. He examined
+the splintered woodwork of the boat with a calculating eye.
+
+Wood was at their service in plenty, but the tools to deal with it were
+wanting. Neither of them possessed a knife. He searched the pockets of
+the dead, but had no success. For a moment they stood regarding each
+other in incredulous despair. Surely Fate, after bracing them with this
+hope, was not going to torture them by withdrawal? And then Aylmer's eye
+fell upon the baling slipper.
+
+He lifted it with a gesture of relief; he tore the strip of tin from off
+it and held it up.
+
+"That is our blade!" he cried. "We have only to pare down splinters till
+they will pass through the pipe, and the thing is done."
+
+He picked up a piece of planking as he spoke, worked the metal into the
+grain till a split began to gape, and then, wrapping a piece of
+tarpaulin round each end of his impromptu blade, worked it to and fro
+and downwards. A thin sliver of wood was the result--one about eighteen
+inches long.
+
+He repeated the operation, slowly and carefully. As each lath was split
+and pared, he passed it to his companion and she spliced the ends with
+strips of gray cloth. And these? Aylmer took them from the dead body at
+the end of the cloister. Miller, in death, was helping to repair some of
+the injuries for which his life was responsible.
+
+They worked methodically, without haste, but with every care. Two hours
+later they had a twelve-foot staff laid out at their feet. To the top
+they attached a little flag, also of gray. They divided it into halves,
+thrust the upper half into the pipe, attached the lower one to it, and
+then pushed the whole upwards to the full extent of Aylmer's reach.
+Claire peered anxiously into the hole. She gave a great cry of relief;
+her eyes filled with sudden tears.
+
+"The flag is outside!" she cried. "There is no doubt of that; it is a
+certainty. While it was wrapped round the head of the staff inside the
+tube, it hid all light from me. And now light has come again--dim, but
+there still. It slips down between the staff and the sides. The flag is
+out in the air--the air!"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"All that remains, then, is to keep it moving--to show that human beings
+are holding its other end. We must work ceaselessly."
+
+He looked round at her as he spoke. Her eyes were bent on him earnestly,
+meditatively. And there was something in her gaze for which he had no
+clue.
+
+She spoke, and so supplied it herself.
+
+"I think we shall be rescued now," she said quietly. "I feel a certainty
+about it, an instinct. Yes, I think we have defeated Fate. We shall come
+back into life again, you and I."
+
+He understood. Through the wild days in the boat and on the island, Fate
+had given no chance for either of them to probe the future. Hope had
+had so tiny a place in their thoughts--hopelessness had so immeasurably
+absorbed them all. And now? Was she allowing herself to dwell on life as
+it would affect them untouched by Fate, and free? Was she mentally
+rearranging her attitude to him?
+
+Fate would supply her own answer. He turned and doggedly began to work
+the flagstaff up and down.
+
+A tension of silence was over them as they waited. The hours went by.
+With a little gesture she came, took the pole from his hand, and bade
+him rest. He surrendered it quietly, spent ten minutes in massaging his
+stiffened muscles, and then took it again. It was queer, this sudden
+reticence which had arisen between them. It was as if while Fate delayed
+to speak, all other words were futile. And her answer might come at any
+moment or--God help them--not at all.
+
+The hours lengthened. The thin rays which still filtered through the
+half-closed pipe grew dim and at last died altogether. Night had come.
+
+Aylmer turned with a little shrug, placed a plank beneath the butt of
+the staff to keep it in position, and came back to the boat.
+
+"There is no need to fatigue ourselves through the darkness," he said.
+"Till daylight shows our flag again, we had better rest, to be strong
+for to-morrow. Shall we sleep?"
+
+She looked at him curiously, and then answered with a little nod.
+
+"Sleep," she agreed. "You are tired, tired. And wake strong; your
+strength--God knows--has been tried enough."
+
+There was something restrained in her voice; something which again
+escaped his comprehension, but his fatigue was overmastering. He
+stretched himself upon a couple of flags. Sleep overcame him instantly.
+
+Was it a moment later that he awoke in answer to her cry? So he
+believed, but as a matter of fact midnight was long past. She had lit a
+match; she was holding it to the wick of the lantern.
+
+Her eyes were wide and bright with excitement. She pointed towards the
+pipe.
+
+"I could not rest!" she cried. "No, I could not sleep and know that
+rescue might be passing by. I have worked at the staff ceaselessly and
+now! Now it is gone!"
+
+He sprang towards her.
+
+"Gone!" he repeated. "Gone!"
+
+"They are there--above us--men--men who know we are here. They pulled it
+up, out of my hands!" She made a gesture which pled for silence.
+"Listen!" she cried. "Listen!"
+
+A tinkling sound came from the pipe and then a tiny bottle sank into
+view, dangling from a string. He seized it. It was warm.
+
+"Soup!" he cried. "Food! That is their first thought for us! And I had
+forgotten that I was starving. I had forgotten it absolutely!"
+
+He held it to her lips. She put out her hand in protest, but his gesture
+was inexorable. She gave a queer little laugh, shrugged her shoulders,
+and drank. He took the half she left him and drank in his turn. He tied
+the bottle again to the string and shook it. It disappeared and was
+lowered again, this time with wine. And half a dozen little rolls
+dropped at their feet. They ate, they waked the child and fed him, they
+sat, and from above the sound of pick and mattock in the hands of men
+who toiled furiously thundered down to them. They speculated how and
+whence the first sight of rescue would appear. They laughed in high,
+excited tones. Expectancy had them in its grip to the exclusion of all
+other emotions.
+
+And then, with a sudden roar and crash, an avalanche of rubble poured
+into the hole which they had dug into the mass of debris. And with it
+came a man in sailor uniform who mixed anathema and congratulation in
+excited but fluent French. He wept, he fell upon Aylmer's neck and
+embraced him, he kissed the child and Claire's hand. Slowly they toiled
+at his heels, helped by a dangling rope, out into the red glare of a
+dozen torches which were held by seamen of the French Marine.
+
+And one of the two officers who directed them called upon the name of
+God and all His saints to emphasize his amazement.
+
+It was Rattier who held and shook their hands a hundred times. Rattier,
+incoherent, swearing, every vestige of his taciturnity ravished from him
+by emotion, plying them with a thousand questions, raining tears upon
+little John Aylmer's wondering face.
+
+They reached the market square. They looked upon the ruin which covered
+the devastated earth in the wan light of the slowly coming dawn.
+
+Five miles away, swinging at her mooring opposite the ruined port of
+Messina was a white-hulled boat--a boat which they looked at with
+wistfully incredulous eyes. They whispered her name.
+
+"_The Morning Star?_" they wondered. "_The Morning Star?_"
+
+"What else?" cried the commandant, exultantly. "That Spanish torpedo
+boat--did you think nothing was to be heard from her? You disappeared.
+Two days later comes the news from Malaga of a felucca, going east with
+prisoners on board. Would that not induce your father, Mademoiselle, to
+put two and two together? The Melilla port authorities supplied the name
+of that felucca and her destination--Sicily. He arrived two days back. I
+have seen him, we spoke together, and then God knows all our energies
+and thoughts have been with these poor wretches ashore. Down in Messina
+your own countrymen and the Russians are doing marvels. The _Diomède_
+was the only French ship, alas, in harbor, but we have others coming
+from Tunis, from Algiers, from Marseilles. We need every worker we can
+get. What you have suffered thousands are suffering still."
+
+Aylmer gave a quick, decided little nod. He looked at Claire.
+
+"You will let one of these sailors see you on board?" he said. "Paul
+will spare one to escort you."
+
+She looked at him, startled, a little bewildered, even.
+
+"And you?" she asked. "And you?"
+
+He made a gesture towards the chaos which covered shore and hill.
+
+"Can I leave the work which calls me, knowing what I know?" he asked.
+"Paul has put my duty into words. What I have suffered, others are
+suffering yet. Would you think well of me, if I left it?"
+
+She looked at him with a smile that told of appreciation, approval, of
+something (or was hope a lying glass?) more than these.
+
+"No!" she said quietly. "No!" She hesitated a moment.
+
+"And when I have found my father, eased his mind, delivered to him his
+grandchild whom he owes to you, rested, made myself strong to work, will
+you come for me to do my part? Will you come--then?"
+
+As the dawn rose over Messina's city of the dead, in John Aylmer's heart
+rose the dawn of hope fulfilled. Her eyes? What message did they not
+give? He read it as plainly as he knew he would read it at their next
+meeting--from her lips.
+
+He lifted her hand. His moustache swept it.
+
+"Till then, Claire," he whispered. "Till then, Beloved."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+SHADOWS GO
+
+
+Dawn flushed into full daylight as the sun rose upon the ruined city.
+Morning dragged its length to midday and midday merged in afternoon. And
+the workers toiled on doggedly, burrowing, hewing, climbing, flinging
+their energies, risking their lives, against the inanimate barriers of
+destruction. Italian and Frenchman, Englishman and Russian vied with
+each other in deeds of humanity against the common foe. Nor was that foe
+content with the victory already won. Further shocks furrowed the
+stricken shores: ruin became more complete, danger more menacing, but
+the toilers worked on.
+
+Aylmer's rescuers had gone aboard their ship and had been replaced by a
+new relay. He himself remained. The pressing needs of those who lay, as
+he had lain, in living tombs around him were first in his mind. But
+another thought was ceaseless. Certainty--that was what he asked.
+Certainty of Landon's fate. He scarcely allowed himself to realize how
+he hoped--_yearned_--to know definitely that Landon was dead. He simply
+contemplated it as a matter of completeness, as news that would bring
+infinite relief to those on board _The Morning Star_. If he were alive?
+He set his lips grimly. Though law was suspended, order out of gear,
+Landon should meet his deserts. If not by instruments of Italian
+justice, then by Aylmer's own hands--by the law of retribution, not the
+law of revenge.
+
+He dropped the mattock which he had been wielding. He stood up and
+straightened himself, turning his eyes from the wearying expanse of
+wreckage towards the sea.
+
+A boat was running up beside the ruined jetty. Before the mooring ropes
+were cast ashore a tall figure leaped from it--a figure clad in a
+_soutane_.
+
+Aylmer made an exclamation, hesitated, and then clambered down the walls
+and ran across the uneven flags, holding out his hand.
+
+Padre Sigismondi flung up his arms. His gesture was one of incredulous
+relief.
+
+"But the Signora?" he cried, stricken with sudden apprehension. He
+panted, his eyes were vivid with anxiety. "The Signora?"
+
+As Aylmer answered with the one vital word, the priest cried aloud
+again. He lifted his face towards the sky and made the sign of the
+cross.
+
+"Safe!" he repeated. "Safe! If there was a single hope left to me amid
+the horrors which have overwhelmed us, it was that. I told myself that
+God, who allowed me to fail in my duty to you through my arrogant
+self-confidence, might be saving you in the midst of--and by--this
+destruction. When I came to myself and found you gone, I writhed. My
+friend, I cast myself upon the ground in the agonies of my
+self-reproach. Not to have plumbed the wicked devices of these men--I,
+who have worked among them a score of years!"
+
+Aylmer gripped his hand.
+
+"You, yourself?" he inquired. "You come here--how?"
+
+"One of the many boats which were speeding to Messina--some, alas, with
+no charitable intent, I fear--saw my signals and took me off. And now?
+One scarcely knows where to begin. How can one confront such a disaster
+with one's puny efforts? God send me His strength! My own is as water!"
+
+A shout echoed to them suddenly from the group of sailors. One stood up
+and waved to them with his neckcloth.
+
+Aylmer made an answering gesture. He took the priest's arm.
+
+"Begin here, father," he said quietly. "Some of those we have found are
+alive, but death's claim, I fear, is relaxed for no more than an hour or
+two. They need your offices. It may be for such an one that they are
+signalling to us now."
+
+They hurried across the square. They climbed the pyramid of ruin.
+
+The sailors were looking down at something which lay at their
+feet--something brown, and white, and vivid red.
+
+The quartermaster pointed to a crevice in the masonry.
+
+"There is a hollow," he explained. "We pulled him out by the arms,
+which--God forgive us--are broken. There are in there, perhaps, others.
+His eyes imply it. Words are beyond him."
+
+The priest gave a startled exclamation. Aylmer echoed it. Disfigured,
+battered, crushed as it was, they recognized the figure in the
+blood-stained _djelab_ of brown.
+
+A growing dimness was clouding Muhammed's eyes. The quick pant of his
+breathing weakened as they watched. But a flash of feeling illuminated
+the pallid features as the Moor's glance reached and dwelled upon
+Aylmer's face.
+
+His lips moved.
+
+"The child?" he asked in a faint whisper. "The Sidi Jan?"
+
+Padre Sigismondi darted an inquiring look at his companion and then
+knelt beside the dying man.
+
+"The child is well," he answered gravely. "Yourself? Is there no message
+to give, no delivery of your soul you wish to make? Time is short for
+you. Use it, and me, as you wish."
+
+The brown eyes searched the priest's features with a queer disdain, as
+it seemed--or was it, perchance, compassion. The stiffening lips became
+more grimly resolute.
+
+"I proclaim!" said the Moor. "I proclaim that there is One God--One
+God--," and passed, unfaltering, to meet Him.
+
+For a moment there was silence. Aylmer broke it.
+
+"Perhaps we owe him more than we think," he said slowly. "The boy? That
+was always his first care. Perhaps he stood between the child and harm.
+I believe that he would have done so in the face of the child's father
+himself!"
+
+Sigismondi drew a fold of the _djelab_ over the bruised face.
+
+"The God to whom he appealed is his judge," he said. "Let us leave it in
+His hands. The living, now, my friend. It is not here that we can
+concern ourselves with the dead."
+
+They turned to the sailors. Half a dozen blocks had been rolled from the
+opening, which gaped wide over an empty darkness. The quartermaster
+slung himself carefully down into it and slowly disappeared.
+
+A moment later they heard his voice.
+
+"A rope," he demanded. "Here is one who is, at least, warm."
+
+They passed down a rope carefully. Aylmer's heart became suddenly
+audible to himself. What would appear; what had Fate still in store for
+him?
+
+Again the quartermaster's voice echoed from the darkness with
+directions. The sailors bent their backs and hauled.
+
+A face appeared in the opening, travelling upwards.
+
+Aylmer felt no surprise. This was the expected, the inevitable. Landon
+was dragged out into the day--Landon--alive.
+
+They laid him silently at his cousin's feet.
+
+And as Aylmer looked down he felt a thrill of what must have been nearly
+akin to sympathy. God help the mutilated wretch!
+
+His arms hung beside him limp and helpless, the fractured bones
+distorted in hideous angles. There were marks as of burns upon his face.
+But the supreme horror was in the sockets which held nothing
+recognizable as human eyes. Coals might have lain within them--coals
+pressed down to find their quenching there.
+
+He moaned ceaselessly, swinging himself from side to side. And then
+words came slowly, piteously, one by one.
+
+"Oil!" he gasped. "For God's sake, a little oil--upon my eyes!"
+
+Sigismondi shuddered. Then he bent and placed his hand compassionately
+on the scarred temple.
+
+"As soon as it can be found, my brother," he said. "Try to keep your
+courage while we do our utmost. We have to carry you--where you can be
+treated."
+
+The tortured wretch moaned again and made an instinctive effort to raise
+a hand to his face. He shrieked as the shattered bones failed him,
+shrieked and cursed in hideous blasphemies. His brain began to wander
+upon the border-line of delirium.
+
+"Hours--days--weeks," he wailed. "Broken--broken! Immovable and always
+in agony--burning--my eyes--my eyes! And the rain--running over them
+and bringing more agony--and more--and more. And unable to move a
+finger. My feet hanging in emptiness--my hands crushed in upon
+me--crushed--crushed--crushed!"
+
+The quartermaster made a gesture of infinite compassion.
+
+"The room had been newly plastered, do you see?" he whispered. "He was
+caught bodily--in the closing of the walls--as a nutcracker closes. And
+he was held and crushed--like the nut. The lime was deep upon his
+face--and when the rain came, washing it in--eating him--" He turned
+away with another pregnant motion of his hands, as if he put from him
+the picture which imagination conjured up.
+
+Aylmer leaned down and spoke.
+
+"We are going to take you from here," he said. "We are going to lift
+you. Be prepared."
+
+Landon's groans ceased. His body became suddenly rigid with attention.
+
+"Jack?" he whispered incredulously. "Jack?"
+
+"It is I," said Aylmer gravely. "I--am unhurt."
+
+Landon's face grew yet more distorted.
+
+"Claire?" he muttered eagerly. "Claire--is gone?"
+
+A light gleamed tempestuously in Aylmer's eyes and then as quickly died.
+His voice was even and restrained.
+
+"She is safe, and well," he said. "She is on her father's yacht."
+
+An inarticulate howl of rage burst from Landon's lips. He rocked himself
+to and fro; he made as if he would beat his broken hands upon the
+stones.
+
+"God! If they'd suffered alongside me, if they'd been there, if they had
+given me groan for groan, I could have stood it--enjoyed it--damn them,
+I could have laughed with the lime in my eyes, if they'd been there--if
+they'd been there!"
+
+He jerked himself to a sitting posture; he writhed backwards and
+forwards. His spite was a sort of ecstasy, possessing him, freeing him,
+as it seemed, from even the sense of pain.
+
+Aylmer made a significant motion. He bent and slipped his arms beneath
+Landon's shoulders. The quartermaster lifted his knees.
+
+Landon struggled in their arms.
+
+"Let me be!" he cried. "Let me stand. Damn you, let me stand upon my own
+feet!"
+
+They hesitated. Then with a shrug the quartermaster laid down his
+burden.
+
+"This is no place for a blind man to pick his way," he remonstrated. "To
+get down, Monsieur, you have to poise yourself along the wall thirty
+feet above the square."
+
+Landon stood panting and leaning against his cousin. The spasms of agony
+were convulsing his face.
+
+"I will not be carried," he panted. "I'll walk upon my feet--like a
+man."
+
+They looked at each other, hesitating.
+
+"But your arms?" protested Aylmer. "Your arms?"
+
+The breath hissed between Landon's teeth.
+
+"My arms!" he repeated. "God! If I'd my arms! You--you must lead
+me--carefully--carefully. Put your hand upon my shoulder; keep
+close--close."
+
+For a dozen yards he tottered along, and the sweat broke out astream
+upon his scars. And then he halted, and stumbled.
+
+The quartermaster instinctively put a hand upon one of the broken
+wrists. Landon shrieked, and cursed him hideously.
+
+"Monsieur might have fallen," apologized the man. "My excuses, Monsieur,
+but it was so quick--so near--the danger. The drop is sheer, do you see,
+sheer down to the square."
+
+Landon gasped. "Which side?" he asked thickly. "Which side?"
+
+"The right," said Aylmer. "Lean away from me, inwards, to the left!"
+
+Landon drew a deep breath.
+
+The next instant he had flung himself against Aylmer's guiding hand,
+outwards, to the right!
+
+For the second time the quartermaster cried aloud and stretched out a
+hand. But it was not Landon's sleeve which it reached, but
+Aylmer's--reached and gripped it while the two bodies reeled upon the
+crumbling edge and sent the flying blocks down to break into powder upon
+the solid flags below.
+
+And then, where two had struggled, one alone remained and clung. Landon
+had gone. Like the blocks he lay thirty feet below--broken.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+FATE SMILES AT LAST
+
+
+A pall of mist and driving rain closed upon the city as evening fell, as
+if Nature flung a veil between herself and the handiwork of her
+passions. Through it the launch of the _Diomède_ threaded the network of
+the shipping.
+
+Warmly red against the ghost-like paintwork, the ports of _The Morning
+Star_ beamed up out of the smother. Aylmer held up his hand. Silently,
+with stopped engines, the boat slid up to the accommodation ladder, and
+as silently Aylmer swung himself aboard.
+
+With a gesture of farewell to the boat's crew and one of greeting to the
+sailor at the gangway head, he passed into the companion and went below.
+In the doorway of the saloon he halted.
+
+Two figures sat at the table, a picture book open before them. Claire's
+arm was about her little nephew's shoulder. His face was turned up to
+hers, but his finger still pointed to the page which they had been
+studying.
+
+"And was he brave, enormously brave?" he was asking. "As brave as--as
+Muhammed?"
+
+"Braver than Muhammed," she said quietly. "Because he was--good."
+
+He debated a moment.
+
+"As brave as the pig man, then?" he suggested. "He's been good, always?"
+
+Aylmer stepped forward.
+
+"Not always," he said smiling. "Not even often. But just as much as he
+knew how to be."
+
+The glances which met his were startled but full of welcome. With a
+cackle of delight little John ran from his seat.
+
+"It's him, himself--the pig man!" he cried.
+
+Aylmer smiled and held out his hand.
+
+Then he turned.
+
+In Claire's eyes the surprise had vanished. They were full of inquiry,
+of an agony of question. Her lips were pale and faltered over the words
+which would not come.
+
+He nodded, gravely, significantly.
+
+She gave a little gasp. The color rushed to her cheeks, flooded to her
+brow. As if some strong chord of tension had broken in her breast, she
+leaned against the table, quivering.
+
+"Yes," said Aylmer, quietly. "That shadow is lifted from our lives. He
+is gone--God's hand fell upon him--as you told him it would. The future
+of this life," he laid his fingers tenderly upon the child's head, "is
+in your hands now." He paused. "And my life, Claire--that is yours, too,
+to deal with, as you will."
+
+She lifted her head.
+
+The wave of emotion had passed and left her calm again. The haggardness,
+the anxious lines, were smoothed. Only in her eyes remained the mist of
+unshed tears. And as the mist sinks from the face of the risen sun, so
+the shadow of passed sorrow fled before her dawning smile. Slowly she
+came towards him.
+
+With a sigh of infinite content her hands reached out to--and placed
+their surrender in--his.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+By E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM
+
+
+THE ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE
+
+Mr. Oppenheim's new story is a narrative of mystery and international
+intrigue that carries the reader breathless from page to page. It is the
+tale of the secret and world-startling methods employed by the Emperor
+of Japan through Prince Maiyo, his close kinsman, to ascertain the real
+reasons for the around-the-world cruise of the American fleet. The
+American Ambassador in London and the Duke of Denvenham, an influential
+Englishman, work hand in hand to circumvent the Oriental plot, which
+proceeds mysteriously to the last page. From the time when Mr. Hamilton
+Fynes steps from the _Lusitania_ into a special tug, in his mad rush
+towards London, to the very end, the reader is carried from deep mystery
+to tense situations, until finally the explanation is reached in a most
+unexpected and unusual climax.
+
+No man of this generation has so much facility of expression, so many
+technical resources, or so fine a power of narration as Mr. E. Phillips
+Oppenheim.--_Philadelphia Inquirer._
+
+Mr. Oppenheim is a past master of the art of constructing ingenious
+plots and weaving them around attractive characters.--_London Morning
+Post._
+
+
+
+
+By ANTHONY PARTRIDGE
+
+The Author of "The Kingdom of Earth"
+
+
+PASSERS-BY
+
+This new novel by Anthony Partridge, whose absorbing romance, "The
+Kingdom of Earth," met with instant favor, has London for its scene. But
+when you have read it you will admit that real London, as well as
+imaginary Bergeland, is a source of fascinating romance.
+
+The heroine of "Passers-By" is a street singer, Christine, who comes to
+London accompanied by Ambrose Drake, a hunchback, with a piano and a
+monkey. The fortunes of these two are strangely linked with those of an
+English statesman, the Marquis of Ellingham, who in his youth has led a
+wild and criminal career in Paris as the leader of a band of thieves and
+gamblers, the Black Foxes. Here is the material for a thrilling tale in
+which mystery breeds adventure and culminates in love.
+
+The first chapter plunges the reader into an interest-compelling maze of
+events, and the attention is held to the end by a series of dramatic
+situations and surprises.
+
+Mr. Partridge is now reckoned among the favorite novelists of the day.
+His first book was "The Distributors," the story of a great London
+mystery. Then came "The Kingdom of Earth," one of the popular novels of
+1909. "Passers-By" is his third book.
+
+
+
+
+_By_ JOHN IRONSIDE
+
+THE RED SYMBOL
+
+_A Swiftly Moving Mystery Story_
+
+
+Here is a tale of love, mystery, and adventure, that opens with a rush
+and holds the interest unflagging to the end. If you like a stirring
+love story, prepare to be fascinated by the charming but baffling
+heroine; if you enjoy an absorbing mystery, be ready to cudgel your
+brains over a perplexing one; if you care for adventures that thrill,
+follow Maurice Wynn through the mad whirl of events that befall him when
+he goes to Russia and becomes involved with a secret society of
+Nihilists. Better yet, if you're fond of a rattling good yarn, one which
+combines all three elements, love, mystery, and action, in just the
+right proportions, take up "The Red Symbol," and when you have turned
+the last page, with nerves all tingling, you will regret that you're not
+just starting.
+
+This swiftly moving narrative promises to be one of the most popular
+novels of 1910.
+
+
+
+
+By MRS. CHARLES N. CREWDSON
+
+AN AMERICAN BABY ABROAD
+
+
+When the American baby's mother hurries off from London to Egypt, where
+her husband is ill with fever, the baby, in company with its colored
+nurse and a friend of its mother's, follows more leisurely. The trio
+stop at Oberammergau to see the Passion Play, in Rome to witness a
+special mass conducted by Pope Leo,--in a word, do more or less
+sightseeing, until they finally reach Cairo, where much more exciting
+events befall them. The description of the places they visit is enhanced
+by a pleasant vein of humor, and an attractive love episode sustains the
+interest. It is an extremely entertaining story, light and vivacious,
+with brisk dialogue and diverting situations--just the book for summer
+reading.
+
+A series of characteristic pictures, by the well-known artist, Mr. R. F.
+Outcault, and Modest Stein gives additional charm to the volume.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PURSUIT***
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+<body>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Pursuit, by Frank (Frank Mackenzie)
+Savile, Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: The Pursuit</p>
+<p>Author: Frank (Frank Mackenzie) Savile</p>
+<p>Release Date: January 5, 2011  [eBook #34861]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PURSUIT***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by Darleen Dove, Mary Meehan,<br />
+    and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h1>THE PURSUIT</h1>
+
+<h2>BY FRANK SAVILE</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Author of "Beyond the Great South Wall," etc.</i></h3>
+
+
+<h3>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY<br />
+HERMAN PFEIFER</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>BOSTON<br />
+LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY<br />
+1910</h3>
+
+<h3><i>Copyright, 1909, 1910,</i><br />
+<span class="smcap">By Little, Brown, and Company.</span></h3>
+
+<h3><i>All rights reserved</i></h3>
+
+<h3>Published, June, 1910</h3>
+
+<h3>THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.</h3>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus1" id="illus1"></a>
+<img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3><i>"I know now that you are a gentleman," she said simply</i></h3>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<p>
+<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I. <span class="smcap">The Lady of the Pier</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II. <span class="smcap">At the Tent Club</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III. <span class="smcap">The Shadow of a Name</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV. <span class="smcap">Despard Explains</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V. <span class="smcap">Mr. Miller</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI. <span class="smcap">Landon's New Profession</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII. <span class="smcap">Villa Eulalia</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII. <span class="smcap">The First Trick is Lost</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX. <span class="smcap">Aylmer is Explicit</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X. <span class="smcap">By Favor of the Fog</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI. <span class="smcap">Rattier Loses his Calm</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII. <span class="smcap">The Ambush of the Broom</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII. <span class="smcap">The Trap</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV. <span class="smcap">One Side of a Bargain</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV. <span class="smcap">Perinaud's News</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI. <span class="smcap">At Melilla</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII. <span class="smcap">Muhammed Scores Twice</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII. <span class="smcap">The Santa Margarita's Lazaret</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX. <span class="smcap">Miller is Still Imperturbable</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX. <span class="smcap">Aylmer Climbs&mdash;and Falls</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI. <span class="smcap">Fate Stays her Hand</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII. <span class="smcap">The Prison</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII. <span class="smcap">Padre Sigismondi</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV. <span class="smcap">Luigi's Hospitality</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV. <span class="smcap">Fate's Final Word</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI. <span class="smcap">Dawn Comes</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII. <span class="smcap">Shadows Go</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII. <span class="smcap">Fate Smiles at Last</span></a><br /><br />
+<a href="#By_E_PHILLIPS_OPPENHEIM">By E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM</a><br />
+<a href="#By_ANTHONY_PARTRIDGE">By ANTHONY PARTRIDGE</a><br />
+<a href="#By_JOHN_IRONSIDE">By JOHN IRONSIDE</a><br />
+<a href="#By_MRS_CHARLES_N_CREWDSON">By MRS. CHARLES N. CREWDSON</a><br />
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+
+<p><a href="#illus1">"I know now that you are a gentleman," she said simply</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#illus2">"You saved the boy!" she said, in a quick, panting whisper</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#illus3">"Mademoiselle, I am Sergeant Perinaud"</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="#illus4">She gripped the protecting hand between her fingers</a></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE PURSUIT</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LADY OF THE PIER</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was not the muleteer's shove, slight but significant though it was,
+which produced John Aylmer's shrug of irritation. His resentment was
+directed at himself. He realized that he had been guilty of a gaucherie.
+For thirty seconds he had been standing halted in the main street of
+Tangier, a rock of obstruction to all the rabble traffic which passes
+between the Bab al Marsa and the Bab al Sôk, staring at&mdash;what?</p>
+
+<p>At a pretty woman.</p>
+
+<p>He reddened under his tan. The muleteer's shoulder had displaced him for
+purely practical reasons, for, indeed, almost benevolent ones, for the
+mules would have been capable of obtaining with their teeth what their
+guardian had obtained by mere weight of his body. But Aylmer felt that
+by accepted social standards a kick would not have been more than his
+due. Had he not been behaving like some cub of a cockney clerk at an
+Earl's Court Exhibition? His lips moved. He was muttering excuses of
+himself to himself, and knew that they were valid, but that an onlooker
+would have had no clue to them.</p>
+
+<p>For it was not her prettiness which had drawn his attention to the girl.
+It took no second glance to assure him that she was no countrywoman of
+his, but an American. Her features had the clean regularity, her
+complexion the pale, unfurrowed smoothness which is kept intact on the
+western side of the Atlantic and there alone. The Moroccan sunlight was
+proving in a dozen places the mistake the shadows made when they dulled
+the gold of her hair to brown. Her eyes matched the waters of the
+unrippled bay.</p>
+
+<p>Though he recognized these things, they had not, in the first place,
+attracted Aylmer's attention. American girls&mdash;pretty American girls&mdash;are
+no rarity in Tangier since Mr. Cook threw over Moghreb-al-Aksa the ægis
+of his protection. Under ordinary circumstances he would have looked,
+approved, and, without altering his stride, passed on. But here was
+something which appealed to the inherited instincts of a gentleman. What
+was it?</p>
+
+<p>Apprehension.</p>
+
+<p>He felt no reasonable doubt on the subject. Among this girl's natural
+attributes, he told himself, were placidity, content, self-reliance. The
+first two were wanting. The third was strained. There was almost a sense
+of furtiveness in the glances which she turned to throw not only about
+but, occasionally, behind her. Frankly, she was afraid.</p>
+
+<p>His interest fed upon observation. He glanced at her more narrowly, he
+observed her surroundings. He drew aside out of the mid-street traffic,
+and under pretence of lighting a cigarette, halted again in the shadow
+of an awning.</p>
+
+<p>She was not alone. She held by the hand a small, alert-looking child&mdash;a
+boy, who watched the passers-by with the happy, unconcentrated interest
+of childhood. His eyes reviewed his surroundings without any of the
+surprise of unaccustomedness; obviously the scene was not strange to
+him. He smiled at Jew and Moslem, Christian and Infidel, with a pleasant
+patronage which one or two itinerant pedlars and shop touts returned
+with obsequious affability. One man, indeed,&mdash;a bronzed, hawk-nosed
+specimen of the desert Arab clad in a ragged <i>djelab</i> of brown,&mdash;laughed
+gaily, plucked a carnation from behind his ear, and flung it to his
+small admirer as he passed.</p>
+
+<p>The child gave a little cackle of delight as he picked it up. The girl
+looked down as he did so and frowned.</p>
+
+<p>"Who was that, Selim?" she asked quickly, and Aylmer saw that the
+question was addressed to a stout, muscular Moor who was in attendance.</p>
+
+<p>The man lifted his shoulders in deprecation and darted a suspicious
+glance towards the crowd which had already closed upon the <i>djelab</i> of
+brown.</p>
+
+<p>"Some desert dog," he answered sullenly. "But indeed Sidi Jan encourages
+all the rabble of the Sôk to take these liberties. He smiles, and the
+jackals think they have license to smile back."</p>
+
+<p>The object of these reproaches thrust the carnation carelessly behind
+his own small ear.</p>
+
+<p>"I have seen him before&mdash;once, twice, many times," he explained. "He
+laughs; he is not gray and dull like Selim. I would like to have him for
+my kavass."</p>
+
+<p>"I drown in perspiration three shirts a day while I wait on thee,"
+affirmed the fat man reproachfully. "Is this thy gratitude?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not wish to be waited on; I wish to be played with," said the
+child. "I should like to go to the sands where the Kaid's horses are
+galloped, and play with the brown man. We would paddle and I would throw
+the water over him. He has promised me this."</p>
+
+<p>The girl started and gave a convulsive little grip of the fingers which
+lay in hers.</p>
+
+<p>"He has spoken to you?" she cried. "When&mdash;where?"</p>
+
+<p>The boy nodded his yellow mop of hair importantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yesterday as I rode through the Sôk," he answered. "He walked beside my
+donkey and told me that I was a horseman already made, and should be on
+the back of a black barb like Sid' Abdullah's. Then I, too, could race
+upon the sands."</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked stonily at the Moor.</p>
+
+<p>"How was this, Selim?" she asked coldly. "Where was your watchfulness?"</p>
+
+<p>The man spread out his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I a prophet&mdash;am I Allah Himself?" he cried aggrievedly. "There was a
+crowd&mdash;a press&mdash;in the Sôk yesterday, wherein one had scarcely room to
+take breath. And you have seen for yourself. Sidi Jan snatches at
+familiarities from such as that one; the nearer the gutter he finds his
+friends the better is he pleased."</p>
+
+<p>She looked down at the delinquent, who, without being disconcerted,
+grinned back.</p>
+
+<p>"John," she admonished him gravely, "you are <i>never</i> to speak or listen
+to strangers in the Sôk, or anywhere else."</p>
+
+<p>John wriggled and pouted.</p>
+
+<p>"I love the brown man," he answered defiantly.</p>
+
+<p>"He's probably a wicked, wicked man," said his monitress. "Instead of
+playing with you on the sands, he'd very likely bite you&mdash;like a camel."</p>
+
+<p>The eyes beneath the yellow mop grew round with interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Would he?" he asked breathlessly. "That would&mdash;would be fun!"</p>
+
+<p>Do what he could to restrain it, a smile broadened across Aylmer's face,
+and in that moment the girl, looking up, met his eye. He reddened
+slightly again, hastily struck and put a match to his still unlit
+cigarette. But in that instant he had read surprise first in her glance,
+then the knowledge that she had been overheard, and lastly&mdash;yes, there
+was no doubt about it&mdash;fear. Not the apprehension of the unknown and
+unexpected this time, but the thrill of distrust experienced by one
+seeing peril looming unveiled before her. She was afraid of him, John
+Aylmer! Her apprehension was no longer vague; he had become the target
+of it.</p>
+
+<p>She dropped her eyes, made a sign to the Moor, and swung quickly towards
+the nearest shop. And Aylmer, in the midst of the mental disturbance
+caused by the incident, barely repressed a smile. For the booth, it was
+little more, was stored with the coarse calicoes and prints which appeal
+to the dwellers in the desert; there was certainly nothing there to
+please the tourist or hunter of curios. No&mdash;hunted, she had turned
+instinctively to the nearest shelter. Undoubtedly she had fled
+from&mdash;him.</p>
+
+<p>He wheeled quickly and strode off down the hill towards the
+Bab-al-Marsa. Explanation eluded him; he felt baffled. At the same time
+he was conscious of a sense of relief. Instinct had brought him to a
+halt, the instinct which bids the normal man stop to offer help to the
+helpless even before that help is claimed. He had discovered, or thought
+he had discovered, fear in the girl's attitude, and almost inadvertently
+had stayed to rout it. And now? What fear could have a stable foundation
+which made him, an absolute stranger, its sudden focus?</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head regretfully. To what could not neurasthenia or some
+such fashionable derangement of the nerves bring a woman in these days
+of fashionable stress? And yet? Her bearing had not been that of a
+neurotic. And she was young, three and twenty at the outside. Her face
+was unlined, her eyes clear, yet, after a moment's scrutiny, she had
+fled from him. He could not dismiss the problem; he carried it with him
+out of the Marsa gate, along the wooden pier. Behind the toll bar he sat
+upon a timber balk and studied it. It gave him a sense of physical pain
+to remember the expression in those eyes, of which the sea was one vast
+reminder.</p>
+
+<p>A minute or two later, with a petulant shrug, he dismissed the
+matter&mdash;or tried to&mdash;from his thoughts. After all, mystery though it
+was, the affair had no real significance for him. He had, inadvertently,
+frightened a lady. But no real responsibility was his. He had looked at
+her keenly; too keenly, perhaps, but with no shadow of offence. She had
+chosen to interpret his scrutiny as menacing. They would probably not
+meet again&mdash;why, indeed, should they? And yet, this decision was
+mentally addressed to a possibly listening Fate to disarm it. Without
+defining the desire even to himself, he knew that it was there. He
+wanted to meet her again; he wanted it badly.</p>
+
+<p>It was with this desire still at the back of his mind that he turned his
+eyes seaward on the mission which had brought him to the harbor.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Diomède</i>? Was she in? Would her commander, Paul Rattier, be in time
+to join him in riding out to the Tent Club that evening, or would they
+have to postpone their expedition to the early hours of daylight? He
+strained his glance northward where the gray bulk of Gibraltar was
+hidden by floating clouds of Mediterranean mist.</p>
+
+<p>Two French men-of-war lay far out in the bay. A trail of black smoke
+showed where another steamed eastward with invalids from Casablanca to
+Oran. But neither of the three was the <i>Diomède</i>; he knew her squat
+turrets among a thousand. He gave a pessimistic little sigh. Instead of
+the jovial evening out at Awara under canvas, they would have the hot
+discomforts of an hotel and a fifteen-mile ride in the dawning to sap
+their energies before the day's sport began. He looked up with
+discontent at the westering sun. It appeared to be sinking towards the
+horizon with almost indecent haste.</p>
+
+<p>He pulled out another cigarette and lounged lazily along the plank,
+watching the traffic of the pier and shore in <i>blasé</i> indifference. Just
+below him half a dozen <i>barcasses</i> were being filled with stout, squat
+little cattle, destined for food for the weary troops of Ber Rechid and
+El Setat. The bullocks were being goaded up an incline of planks and
+tumbled roughly into the unwieldy lighters, and as these were filled a
+little tug fussed up and towed them by threes to the waiting steamer of
+the Compagnie Mixte. And here the sufferings of the bullocks deepened
+from mere discomfort to the fine edge of tragedy. In twos they were
+lassoed round the horns. The steam winch aboard the steamer crashed,
+and with straining necks and starting eyes the unfortunate beasts were
+rushed up through the air and swung with terrifying speed down into the
+hold. They were near enough for him to see through his binoculars the
+strained mute agony of fear in the eyes of each brute as it swung. And
+there was a dog on board. Each time as the living load passed within
+reach of its leap, it sprang into the air and made its teeth meet in the
+helpless flesh. And the stevedores applauded and goaded him to further
+efforts. Finally the horns of one struggling animal broke. There was a
+hoarse laugh as it fell, to break other bones, no doubt, in the depths
+of the hold, or to mutilate some former comrade below. Aylmer turned
+away with a shrug of sickened disgust. What a land of cruelty it was, of
+grinding cruelty which spared neither man, woman, nor child, and
+certainly no beast! He turned his glance shorewards to avoid seeing the
+tragedy of the bullocks repeat itself.</p>
+
+<p>As he did so he gave a start of suddenly aroused interest. Rapidly
+nearing him was a man whom he recognized. He was the hawk-nosed, swarthy
+son of the desert who had flung the carnation at the American child's
+feet. He was walking rapidly, smiling, talking in a quick undertone to
+another child, one who trotted at his side happily enough&mdash;born of his
+own people, this&mdash;a little Moor, clad in a tiny bournous and a hooded
+<i>djelab</i> of brown.</p>
+
+<p>They were making for the steps which led down from Aylmer's side to the
+huddle of rowboats which awaited chance fares below.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Aylmer's attention, which had been aroused merely by the fact
+that the sight of the man led his thoughts back to the interest of an
+hour before, became concentrated. The Moorish child babbled in English!</p>
+
+<p>"A black stallion!" he said impressively. "One that will arch his neck
+like the dome of the mosque, and carry me past all the other horses on
+the sands?"</p>
+
+<p>"It shall be as you desire, little lord," answered the man, easily. "We
+have but to take a boat from among the many below and row across to the
+beach. There the horse of thy desires awaits thee. Look carefully.
+Perchance thou canst see it even now. Thou hast the eyes of a hawk; I
+know it."</p>
+
+<p>And then Aylmer understood. He saw that below the child's ears and along
+the line of his hair a dye had been applied. The golden curls had been
+stuffed back into the hood of the <i>djelab</i>, shoes and stockings flung
+away, and little dye-stained feet thrust into yellow slippers. The folds
+of the bournous covered all else. It was the child of the street
+encounter, the child himself!</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer's instincts, rather than any formed purpose, brought him to his
+feet and in front of the man, as the latter was about to descend the
+stairs.</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you gain authority over this?" he asked curtly in Arabic,
+pointing down at the boy.</p>
+
+<p>The man eyed him with stony imperturbability.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Tangier come to such a pass that we of the Faith have to justify to
+Nazarenes our authority over our own children?" he asked. "Keep to thine
+own affairs, <i>Kaffirbillah</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer did not unbar the road of the steps. He leaned down and spoke
+directly to the child, who was regarding him with half timid curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this man your kavass?" he said gently. "Is he in your parents'
+service?"</p>
+
+<p>The red flush of guilt rose under the brown dye. A bright yellow curl
+fell from out of the <i>djelab</i> hood as the small head was shaken.</p>
+
+<p>"He promised me a horse," said lips which had begun to have a distinct
+semblance of trembling. "They have only given me a donkey so far&mdash;only a
+gray donkey."</p>
+
+<p>"Then they do not know that you are with this man; they would not allow
+it?" pursued Aylmer.</p>
+
+<p>The Moor broke in angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not be questioned, little lord!" he cried. "This is a son of
+infinite shame and wickedness, who has no rights over thee!"</p>
+
+<p>"As many, at least, I suspect, as thou," returned Aylmer. "This is a
+matter for investigation. We will come to the post of the Spanish police
+at the pier head."</p>
+
+<p>"We!" The man's eyes flashed wickedly. "I come not, nor this, my
+charge."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"That is a matter within your discretion, for yourself." He laid his
+hand upon the child's shoulder. "But this one goes with me."</p>
+
+<p>A grin of rage flashed across the Moor's features. With one hand he made
+a quick clawing snatch at the child's arm; the other he plunged into his
+bosom. As it reappeared a knife blade flashed in the sun.</p>
+
+<p>Mere instinct made Aylmer throw up his arm in defence. Experience and
+presence of mind bade him fling himself to one side without removing his
+knee from the path of his assailant. Matters followed the usual course
+when this old trick of the desert is put in action. The fellow tripped,
+plunged forward over the outsprawled limb, and fell crashingly upon his
+elbows.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer's first thought was for the knife which gleamed upon the
+planking half a dozen yards away. He scrambled to his feet and, without
+troubling to bend, gravely kicked it into the sea. At the same time he
+was aware of a commotion behind him. The small child's voice was raised
+in anger.</p>
+
+<p>"I hate you&mdash;I hate you!" he declaimed. "Now Selim will get me!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a reason for his wrath. Panting, blowing, and, to be frank,
+looking uncommonly like an over-driven buffalo, the Moor attendant was
+speeding down the pier with outstretched arms furiously gesticulating.
+The flap of his slippers slammed upon the boards, boat boys jeered,
+hotel touts made comments which no Bowdler could render into reputable
+English. And a few yards behind him&mdash;Aylmer's heart gave a queer little
+leap at the sight&mdash;ran totteringly the white-clad lady, his mistress.</p>
+
+<p>The child made an angry gesture of repulse.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't go back!" he shrilled. "I won't, I won't!"</p>
+
+<p>He looked round towards his new-found friend, who was scrambling to his
+feet. He ran towards him.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer stretched out a hand and whirled the child up, facing towards the
+Moor. The latter hesitated, looked towards the advancing figures, and
+hesitated no longer. Behind the lady ran a couple of the newly raised
+Spanish police.</p>
+
+<p>He swerved swiftly aside, dashed down the steps, and passed rapidly from
+boat to boat across the gunwales till he had gained one on the outskirt
+of the press. He shouted fiercely to the boy who held the oars, and the
+latter bent to his work. The tide was with them and they passed rapidly
+across the harbor mouth towards the yellow sands outside the town.</p>
+
+<p>The child struggled and shouted in Aylmer's arms, stretching out his
+hands as he saw his friend disappear in the direction of the, to him,
+still credible black stallion and other promised delights. He struck out
+passionately at Selim as the latter's hand closed upon him like the grip
+of an embodied Fate.</p>
+
+<p>"I want my horse, my horse!" he wailed. "I don't want a donkey; I hate
+it, hate it!"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer surrendered him, nothing loath, into his attendant's arms and
+then stood expectant, hat in hand. As she saw Selim again in full
+command of his responsibilities, the girl dropped from a run into a
+rapid walk. She panted, she held her hand upon her breast as she joined
+them. The two khaki-clad police inspected Aylmer with something of
+mistrust in their gaze.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment her breath failed her; she could only look at the captive
+with half resentful, half satisfied eyes. Then she shook her finger at
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"You wicked child!" she cried. "You wicked, wicked child!"</p>
+
+<p>The small sinner laughed defiantly.</p>
+
+<p>"The brown man beckoned me from the door of the mosque," he boasted. "I
+did see him and ran behind the mule that passed, and in at the door, and
+the brown man caught me up and smeared brown stuff on my face, and ran
+with me through the other door and out into the other street and covered
+me with this." He indicated the <i>djelab</i> with pride. "And Selim did not
+find me. Ho! Ho! I saw fat Selim jumping like a jerboa as we passed the
+harbor gate!"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer inspected him gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a bamboo cane at home which would meet your case, young man," he
+said quietly. "Would the loan of it be a boon?" he asked suddenly,
+looking at the girl.</p>
+
+<p>There was no answering smile in her eyes. She shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you for&mdash;your intervention," she said quickly. "No, we never beat
+children in America; we&mdash;we respect them."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"In England our plan is to make them respect themselves," he answered.
+"I dare say both methods have their advantages." He made a gesture
+towards the town. "Can I have the pleasure of escorting you back?" he
+asked. "Have you any further&mdash;attempts to fear?"</p>
+
+<p>There was an obvious desire for information in the question and in his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>She made no attempt to satisfy it. She shook her head again.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, no," she answered. "John will have no further opportunities
+to escape us; we have had our lesson. I can only thank you again and say
+good morning."</p>
+
+<p>He raised his cap in answer to her bow. He watched her turn and walk
+after Selim, who held his prisoner enfolded in an embrace that gave no
+loophole for a second escape, little, indeed, for any movement at all.
+Expression gave place to expression on Aylmer's face. Irritation
+succeeded surprise and that was quickly followed by amusement.</p>
+
+<p>Finally he seemed to dismiss the subject with a shrug which was all
+bewilderment.</p>
+
+<p>"She thanked me," he reminded himself. "She thanked me, but her manner
+suggested that she would rather have flung me a sovereign to get
+decently rid of me." He nodded his head with decision. "She's afraid of
+me, that's the truth. Why&mdash;in the name of all that's sensible&mdash;Why?"</p>
+
+<p>Echo supplied no answer.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>AT THE TENT CLUB</h3>
+
+
+<p>Aylmer tightened the reins, touched the rowels against the mare's flank,
+and lifted her out of her easy amble into something like a canter. He
+called to his companion and pointed up the slope at a gleam of white set
+in the dun green of the cork woods.</p>
+
+<p>"The camp!" he said, and gave a little sigh of relief. Through the
+fifteen miles which separate Tangier from Awara the two had halted no
+longer than sufficed to tighten a girth or light a cigarette. The horses
+were white with lather, the men stained with dust.</p>
+
+<p>Commandant Rattier looked, nodded, and smiled. For a sailor, people were
+apt to consider him taciturn&mdash;at first; but they soon discovered that
+his was a taciturnity which spoke. His brown eyes could gleam with many
+lights which were whimsically expressive. A little sidelong jerk of his
+neatly trimmed beard told more than many elaborated sentences.
+Reputations had tottered and scandals had been abashed before a single
+gesture of his neatly gloved hands. For the moment his nod suggested
+content, anticipation, and unruffled good humor.</p>
+
+<p>A minute later surprise overcame his reticence. Half a dozen dull,
+half-muffled explosions throbbed in the distant jungle of broom and wild
+olive. The commandant's eyebrows rose in arcs of amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"Do they then shoot the boar as well as impale it?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"The beaters," he explained. "They are driving towards the plain behind
+the marsh. They are firing blank charges."</p>
+
+<p>The Frenchman gave a little laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"In all these matters you must remember that I am of an ignorance the
+most profound. And my impudence, also, must appear to you colossal. I am
+to allow myself to charge with a spear&mdash;I, who, till to-day, have never
+seen a wild pig save, perhaps, as bacon!"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer dropped the reins upon the mare's neck, lifted his hand, and
+wiped his forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"All things must have a beginning, my friend," he said. "You have the
+sailor's eye and, no doubt, the sailor's steady hand. And, above all,
+you ride&mdash;as sailors do not always ride. I have every reason to believe
+that I shall be proud of you before the day is out."</p>
+
+<p>Rattier lifted his shoulders with a little shrug. He did not speak, but
+he left the impression that he deprecated this point of view, found the
+arguments futile, and disposed of the question finally. The attention of
+the riders was suddenly drawn elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>A couple of men emerged into view from behind a clump of argans. They
+held two horses by the bridles. One of them signalled with outstretched
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>As Aylmer reined in the mare almost upon her haunches the man dropped
+his hand, relinquished the horse he held into the care of his companion,
+and approached. He made a dignified gesture of welcome and pointed to a
+basket on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"Sid' Anstruther sends breakfast, Sidi. They drive the bush beyond the
+hill and the marsh. If you will refresh yourselves here you will avoid
+climbing the hill to the camp. You can then take these horses and join
+the spears who wait at the tongue of the jungle in the plain."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer slid to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"It is well thought of, Absalaam," he said, and turned to explain
+matters to his companion. The Moor beckoned forward his underling, who
+quickly tethered the fresh horses to a broom stump and then led away the
+other two in the direction of the tents which gleamed white upon the
+slope a mile or so above them. Absalaam, meanwhile, was deftly setting
+out the meal in the shadow of the argan branches.</p>
+
+<p>The two began to eat and drink with appreciation but quickly. They did
+not exchange much conversation; their attention, indeed, seemed
+concentrated on matters outside sight but within hearing. For the
+muffled explosions continued and to them was added the sound of
+chorussed and intermittent yells. But these last had not risen to any
+great pitch of excitement; no pig, or, at any rate, no boar, had as yet
+been sighted or had broken cover.</p>
+
+<p>Absalaam flitted to and fro handing dishes, changing plates, expressing
+by the vigilance of his attitude and actions the fact that he, too,
+appreciated the need for haste. His dark eyes beamed a sort of intensity
+of vigor; the pose of his head seemed to indicate that his ears were
+critically alert to the purport of those distant shouts. But he offered
+no comment till Aylmer pushed aside his plate and rose to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Your station, oh Sidis, will be at the far side of the point of jungle,
+between the marsh and the forest."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer nodded, explained to Rattier, and swung himself into the saddle.</p>
+
+<p>"How many spears?" he asked laconically. The Moor held up the open
+fingers of one hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Four," he answered, "and a lady, who rides but does not carry a spear.
+It will be difficult with so few, but the Sidis will find the horses of
+good mettle and capable. Have I now your leave to go, oh Sidis? It is
+desirable that I join the beaters."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer made a curt motion of consent and looked round, with a tinge of
+impatience, for his companion. Rattier was daintily flicking a crumb or
+two from his khaki tunic and flapping his handkerchief at the dust on
+his overalls. He mounted, at last, with a self-satisfied little shrug.
+He was prepared to meet the world's criticism, or this, at any rate, was
+the implication his shoulders conveyed.</p>
+
+<p>With an air that was deferential without being obsequious the Moor
+handed each rider a long "under-arm" spear. The next instant they had
+disappeared down the ragged track through the mimosa at a gallop.</p>
+
+<p>As they emerged into the open plain beyond the stretch of forest land,
+the yells in the jungle combined into a stentorian chorus. The hidden
+men shrieked, hollaed, rattled their staves, and in one or two instances
+performed excited fantasias with empty sardine tins. Up on the slope a
+furlong or two above Aylmer and his companion, a woman came suddenly
+into view, riding a dappled gray, and waving a handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>They turned towards her as another rider, as yet unseen, cantered round
+a thicket of broom in the same direction.</p>
+
+<p>The handkerchief was waved excitedly and the canter became a gallop.</p>
+
+<p>The mimosa crashed; the sun-dried lop of wild olive was splintered.
+Something dark, unwieldy, menacing, burst out of the undergrowth with a
+speed which seemed preposterously out of proportion to its bulk. It fled
+across the interval of sand which lay between the strip of forest behind
+it and the one from which Aylmer and Rattier had just emerged. Emotion
+perforated the latter's imperturbability. Speech escaped him.</p>
+
+<p>"But this is a monster!" he exclaimed. "The near relation of a
+hippopotamus!"</p>
+
+<p>The boar may have heard and certainly seemed to resent the criticism. He
+jinked, wheeled from the direction which would have taken him slantingly
+towards the other rider, and charged the commandant. Nothing daunted,
+the latter lowered his spear and galloped steadily forward.</p>
+
+<p>He did not attempt to lessen his speed to receive the shock. Had his
+skill, indeed, been equal to his spirit, the result would never have
+been in doubt. But he held his spear at a "dropping" angle, which
+discounted the force of speed behind it. The point, instead of meeting
+the boar's chest in a line almost parallel with the ground, grazed his
+jaw, brushed past his shoulder, and cut a shallow groove in his quarter.
+It turned the charge, but not far enough. The wicked eight-inch tusks
+flashed out in passing and gashed the horse's pastern. The gallop slowed
+into a canter, blundered into a trot, and became a halting limp.</p>
+
+<p>The boar jinked again and Aylmer spurred in pursuit, hearing the hoofs
+of his rival's horse thundering jealously behind. He increased his
+speed, diminished the distance yard by yard, lowered his spear, thrust,
+and was nearly spilled from the saddle. With incredible quickness the
+huge body had wheeled again as if on a pivot.</p>
+
+<p>The pursuers made a chorus of their vexation. Their impetuosity carried
+them a full forty yards past the line of the boar's retreat. They reined
+in jerkily, and turned to see their quarry in full retreat up the hill.</p>
+
+<p>By good horsemanship Aylmer maintained and increased his lead, but
+without much hope of overhauling the chase before the thicket gave it
+shelter. The mimosa covert was a bare two furlongs distant. The only
+chance lay in the boar being headed, and all the spears were,
+apparently, behind it. There remained nothing to do but to ride and ride
+hard.</p>
+
+<p>His horse responded bravely to the touch of the spur but the sand was
+loose and deep. He decreased very slightly the distance between pursuer
+and pursued, faltered once or twice, and began to show distress in his
+breathing. Aylmer told himself that, for the moment, the game was up.</p>
+
+<p>And then, with a whirl of flying drapery and gesticulating arms, a new
+rider shot into view on the brow of the slope. Absalaam, calling down
+innumerable maledictions upon the ancestry of all jungle pigs, galloped
+a tent pony between the boar and his refuge.</p>
+
+<p>His tactics were successful, but not in the direction which he had
+desired. The brute wheeled, not down-hill towards the other riders, but
+slanting back and still upwards in the direction of Awara and the camp.</p>
+
+<p>As Aylmer swerved to follow, a cry startled him. He was suddenly aware
+that the lady in white was riding slightly behind, but almost abreast of
+him. She was swathed in a sand veil, but her eyes were uncovered and the
+expression in them was arresting. She was staring up the hill. Her
+glance told of anxiety, or even horror.</p>
+
+<p>He followed the direction of her gaze.</p>
+
+<p>Two figures appeared, both exactly in the line of the hunt. One, also
+white clad, and running with uncertain feet, was evidently a child&mdash;a
+boy of six or seven years. He had distanced his pursuer, a fat and
+middle-aged Moor, who was menacing him with gesticulations of wrath and
+at the same time emitting supplicating cries. The youngster answered him
+with triumphant little jeers, and continued his escape. At the same
+moment both of them saw the approaching danger.</p>
+
+<p>The child halted, hesitated, and seemed to debate upon his action. Not
+so the Moor. With a howl of dismay he fled towards the undergrowth, his
+yellow slippers twinkling against the dun background of the sand. And he
+continued to yell with whole-hearted despair; he woke the echoes with
+his shrieks.</p>
+
+<p>About fifty yards separated Aylmer from the boar. The child was a full
+furlong distant. A sudden chill pulsed into, and gripped, the man's
+heart as he realized the situation.</p>
+
+<p>Again the woman called aloud and smote her horse furiously across the
+withers as she strove to urge it on. Taken by surprise the gray changed
+step, stumbled, and nearly came down. With lowered spear Aylmer shot
+ahead.</p>
+
+<p>The horse responded nobly to the need. The interval decreased. The boar
+was thirty yards ahead&mdash;twenty&mdash;now no more than ten. The wicked little
+eyes flung glances sideways; the bristling withers showed that almost
+imperceptible rippling motion which presages a "jink."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer leaned down across his saddle, holding out the spear before him
+almost by the butt. He was yet too far to get in a thrust. He could only
+hope to divert the brute's attention by a short, pricking stab. For the
+child, now running with short, terrified strides, was immediately in
+front of the gleaming tusks.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer lunged out.</p>
+
+<p>The point reached and entered the boar's flank. It squealed savagely,
+turned, blundered, and fell beneath the horse's hoofs. Aylmer felt the
+shock, the agonizing effort at recovery, the final thud of the fall. The
+horse tripped and rolled over; the spear was torn from the rider's grip.
+Aylmer ploughed a groove in the sand which landed him far out beyond the
+huddle of flying limbs in which the white tusks were already working
+viciously.</p>
+
+<p>He scrambled first to his knees and then to his feet. He looked around.
+The child was close to him, running now towards him. His hands were
+outstretched; he gave little panting cries.</p>
+
+<p>And then Aylmer experienced that curious cold sense of relaxation which
+comes to some men when the situation calls for instant effort. He saw
+the child; he saw also the boar, slashing relentlessly a way out from
+the tangle of his horse's legs; he saw the horsewoman whose reins were
+tightening not twenty yards away. But here was no cause for hesitation
+or bewilderment. His mind, to himself, worked with a certain sense of
+leisure. He stooped, caught up the child, placed him in the woman's
+arms, and gave her horse a thrust of dismissal with his fist. As the
+flying hoofs scattered the sand upon his tunic, he turned to confront
+his own plight without fear, with, indeed, nothing less than relief. The
+absorbing objective of the last two minutes being achieved, his mind
+had not had time to review and interpret his own danger.</p>
+
+<p>The boar shook itself free of entanglement, snapped around at the wound
+in its flank, swayed a little and suddenly, malignantly, focussed its
+gaze upon Aylmer. It gave a grunt of satisfaction, as it seemed. As if
+the tension of a hidden spring was released, it bounded forward.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer looked at it as one looks at, and appraises, a picture. The sense
+of his own peril was in his mind, but latently. He understood the
+consequences if the boar reached him, but, owing to some perverse
+enravelment of the brain, details absorbed him to the veiling of all
+else. He noted with what excellent effect the crimson smear upon the
+dark flank shone out against the dull background of the sand. He
+recognized the abnormal curl of the tusks, and debated to what angle the
+jaw must be slanted to deliver the ripping undercut which experience
+told him he would receive within a couple of seconds. He saw with a pang
+of regret that the shaft of his spear was broken; the splintered end
+protruded from below the withers of the still struggling horse. Thus the
+picture&mdash;which engrossed him.</p>
+
+<p>And then it was gone, blotted out. The thunder of hoofs, a rising cloud
+of sand, a dark, struggling mass, which was the boar upon its back. The
+rider whom he had distanced had passed and the spear had got home. Red
+was the central spot of this picture, also, but no longer on the dark
+flank. It welled from the dying animal's chest in torrents.</p>
+
+<p>As he watched its struggles, the sense of hazard escaped came home to
+him. Fear found room in his brain. He ran towards the broken spear,
+grasped it, turned to confront a peril which no longer menaced.</p>
+
+<p>A shudder shook the swaying body, the great thews relaxed. The boar
+panted violently&mdash;once&mdash;twice. Then with a single sigh, very gently,
+very languidly, it sank upon the earth. And so lay still.</p>
+
+<p>As he stood staring down at it, a reaction against his tinge of panic
+moved Aylmer to laughter. He began to giggle in little bubbling gasps of
+mirth which were near relations of hysteria. Matters had gone so quickly
+that his sense of proportion had been displaced. First perfect
+equanimity, then sudden and unfounded apprehension, now recoil. One
+short minute had made ample room for all these among his emotions. He
+found laughter the only balm to his self-respect, for he was shivering
+with a Briton's uneasy sense of having been guilty of melodrama.</p>
+
+<p>His introspection was so intent that he failed to observe the return of
+the lady in white till her horse spurned the sand upon his riding boots.
+Then he wheeled alertly and looked up in her face. Her veil had dropped.</p>
+
+<p>She was clasping the child to her with the hand in which she gripped the
+reins. The other she held out to him.</p>
+
+<p>"You saved the boy!" she said, in a quick, panting whisper. "You saved
+him!"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus2" id="illus2"></a>
+<img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3><i>"You saved the boy!" she said, in a quick, panting whisper</i></h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>Aylmer took the proffered hand, lifted his hat, smiled, and recognized
+the lady of the pier.</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated a moment. He shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he deprecated, and pointed to the other spear-man who was already
+wheeling to inspect his trophy. "Your thanks are due to our friend
+Despard, if anywhere."</p>
+
+<p>"No!" she contradicted vehemently. "Did I not see it? You were
+sacrificing yourself, doing it deliberately. And I shall never forget
+it&mdash;never!"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled again. He looked at the child who sat silent on the
+saddle-bow, staring down at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Still running away?" queried Aylmer, pleasantly. "Whither, this time?
+And what was the terrible hurry?"</p>
+
+<p>A guilty grin puckered the little man's lips.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I knowed you; you're the man of&mdash;of yesterday," he shrilled.
+"I was running from Selim. He wanted me to take siesta, but I did wish
+to be in the hunt."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"The usual trouble," he said. "We all want to be in&mdash;or, at any rate, to
+see&mdash;the hunt. And we never pay any attention to Selims, worse luck.
+You'll learn more by experience, sonny."</p>
+
+<p>The child made a little gesture of protest.</p>
+
+<p>"That's not my name," he answered solemnly. "Mother calls me Jackanapes,
+or Jack. But I'm John, really, just John."</p>
+
+<p>"Just John," assented Aylmer. "Just John what?"</p>
+
+<p>"John Aylmer," said the boy and stared in surprise at his new friend's
+startled visage. But the other John Aylmer was not looking at his
+namesake. He was looking at the girl who held him.</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes answered the glance gravely, sternly, even defiantly, and in
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>"You?" cried Aylmer. "You are&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"John's nurse," she said, looking him steadily in the face.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SHADOW OF A NAME</h3>
+
+
+<p>For a moment there was silence between the two. Aylmer's fingers
+unconsciously wound and unwound a tiny lock of hair in the horse's mane.
+His eyes travelled over the woman's face and figure appraisingly; his
+brows contracted into a frown of puzzlement.</p>
+
+<p>He had seen little John Aylmer's mother once before, at her wedding nine
+years previously. She had been a girl, then, almost a child, and young
+for her age, which was barely eighteen. Her beauty had been the fresh,
+innocent <i>beauté du diable</i>. She was fair, blue-eyed, with a tendency to
+fragility. And if report told the truth, her beauty had wasted and her
+fragility increased through the cruel years of her husband's domination.
+A bare six months ago she had been freed. Her father's millions had
+helped her to a separation which English Courts had made a legal one.
+They had also given her the custody of her one child, the heir to the
+Aylmer name and the Landon title.</p>
+
+<p>This girl was fair, indeed; her eyes like the sea, her color fresh, her
+forehead bland and unwrinkled. But she was not the woman whose woes had
+made copy for a thousand newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic, whose
+sufferings had roused the storm of execration which had made the honest
+name of Aylmer a byword of dishonor and reproach. No, this was not his
+cousin Landon's wife.</p>
+
+<p>And yet?</p>
+
+<p>Feature for feature, line for line, she reminded him of the woman whose
+daintiness he remembered among the massed decorations of that New York
+cathedral those years ago.</p>
+
+<p>He sought bluntly for an explanation.</p>
+
+<p>"I, too, am John Aylmer," he said quietly. "Who are you?"</p>
+
+<p>The sudden thrill of surprise with which she clutched the child to her
+tightened the reins. The gray backed a step; it was as if horse and
+rider were alike repelled by his question.</p>
+
+<p>She stared at him with a sudden fierce aversion which was undisguised.</p>
+
+<p>"You are Landon's cousin&mdash;you?" she cried.</p>
+
+<p>He bowed his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I have that misfortune," he answered quietly.</p>
+
+<p>At the form of his answer a tinge of relief woke in her eyes, but they
+still watched him with incredulity and suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>"He&mdash;he has sent you?" she demanded. "You bring other proposals, or
+threats?"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"We have shared nothing, except a club, he and I," he explained. "I have
+not set eyes on him for over a year."</p>
+
+<p>She still watched him alertly, debatingly, and still with mistrust.</p>
+
+<p>"How did you come here, and why?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I am a member of the Tent Club," he answered. "I am in garrison at
+Gibraltar. I could not get leave till yesterday afternoon and I waited
+in Tangier to accompany Captain Rattier, whose ship is in harbor. Have I
+sufficiently explained myself?"</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"You have not seen your cousin for over a year? Perhaps you are in
+correspondence with him?"</p>
+
+<p>He showed signs of impatience.</p>
+
+<p>"We have not exchanged half a dozen letters in our lives!" he said
+emphatically.</p>
+
+<p>The lines of her face remained unsoftened. Her fierce grip on the
+child's shoulder did not relax.</p>
+
+<p>"And this Frenchman&mdash;this Captain Rattier?" she asked. "What of him?"</p>
+
+<p>His eyebrows expressed the intensity of his amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"Paul Rattier is my distant cousin," he answered. "No finer gentleman
+walks the earth." He paused for a moment. "Is it permitted to inquire
+why you suspect&mdash;strangers?"</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer him. An abstraction, real or feigned, seemed to have
+seized her. She stared out over his head into the distance with unseeing
+eyes as if she weighed problems, debated evidence, sought conclusions.
+It was the child who roused her into attention. He laughed, clapped his
+hands, and shouted.</p>
+
+<p>"Browny!" he clamored in delight. "Browny!"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer looked round.</p>
+
+<p>Rattier, leading a very melancholy and still bleeding horse, had
+approached with Despard. Together they were bending over the major's
+trophy, the dead boar. Behind them Aylmer's horse was hobbling painfully
+to its feet. Despard looked up and shook an admonishing finger at his
+acclaimer.</p>
+
+<p>"You young rebel!" he cried. "You want a good smacking for your
+disobedience!"</p>
+
+<p>He slipped from the saddle as he spoke and led his horse towards them.
+He laid his hand familiarly on Aylmer's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurt?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Not in the least," said Aylmer, and then looked, with a significant
+lift of the eyebrow, from Despard to the gray horse's rider.</p>
+
+<p>Despard's face showed his own surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you know each other yet?" he marvelled. "Miss Van Arlen&mdash;Captain
+Aylmer."</p>
+
+<p>Uncertainty gripped Aylmer again. Landon had married a daughter of Jacob
+Van Arlen, the millionaire. A divorcée reverted to her maiden name, but
+surely not to her maiden title. But Despard had said Miss, most
+distinctly Miss.</p>
+
+<p>With his usual straightforward instinct to find the nearest way to probe
+a mystery, he looked at the girl herself. He became aware that her eyes
+had been upon his face with intentness.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said quietly. "This," she patted the child's shoulder, "is my
+nephew."</p>
+
+<p>He gave a little sigh of appreciation and, he scarcely knew why, of
+relief. It was not possible, of course, that this girl, whose whole
+poise and carriage spoke of resolution and unfettered self-command,
+could be the woman, broken in health and spirit, who had cowered before
+her husband's glance, so some of the baser journals had hinted, even
+when she was seeking and had received the law's protection from him.</p>
+
+<p>And her eyes? They were not of that appealing blue which had shone
+beneath the bride's deep lashes on that half-forgotten wedding-day. They
+were blue, indeed, but they met his with something which was akin to
+defiance.</p>
+
+<p>She did not explain herself, but her glance was that of one who needed
+no warrant for her demeanor. Her attitude was not one of blatant
+aggressiveness, but was undoubtedly distrustful.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at the child with renewed interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Your sister is&mdash;where?" he asked quickly.</p>
+
+<p>The frown came swiftly back to her forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"You ask me that? Why?" she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally I thought she might be with you," he answered. "As an Aylmer
+I should be glad to meet her."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" Her tone was hard and suspicious again. Unconsciously she gripped
+the child to her again with a fierceness which made him protest.</p>
+
+<p>"You hurt!" he complained. "You hurt, and I want to see the boar."</p>
+
+<p>With a sailor's instinctive fondness for children, Rattier, who had
+resigned his limping horse into the hands of one of the Arab beaters,
+turned towards him.</p>
+
+<p>"May I be permitted?" he said simply, and held out his arms. The child
+made a restless little movement towards him. "He'll show it me!" he
+cried joyously. "He'll take me!"</p>
+
+<p>Again she reined back, looking from one to the other with patent
+misgiving.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" she cried sharply. "You shall not touch him, either of you!" She
+made an appealing gesture towards Despard. "You must see me back to the
+camp!" she said.</p>
+
+<p>He was smiling with tranquil amusement, a smile which seemed to rouse
+her to anger.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go now, at once!" she said, and wheeled her horse.</p>
+
+<p>Despard nodded, but did not dismiss the smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Might I inform you that Aylmer has been my friend since our Sandhurst
+days, and that I have shared his intimacy with Commandant Rattier for
+the last five years? I can vouch for them; I really can."</p>
+
+<p>She reined in her horse again and sat looking at all three with doubt
+still lurking in her eyes. Aylmer met her expression with unrestrained
+amazement. He found her mistrust of him a conundrum to which there was
+no answer. The Frenchman's shoulders rose and fell almost imperceptibly.
+His head was slanted with deferential acquiescence. He laid his hand
+upon Aylmer's arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Your horse?" he interposed.</p>
+
+<p>He pointed to it and to Absalaam, who had now arrived and was touching
+the wounds in its flank with delicate, probing fingers. The commandant's
+gesture seemed to imply that the situation in which they found
+themselves demanded a tactful retreat, and that here he indicated a
+dignified one.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer still hesitated. He saw no reason why he should concur in his own
+dismissal; the idea grated on him. What had he done?</p>
+
+<p>It was Despard who took the edge of restraint off the situation. He
+swung himself back into the saddle, and pointed up the hill.</p>
+
+<p>"After all, the thing was a squeak," he allowed. "You are shaken." He
+turned and nodded slightly to the other two. "I will return and help
+with the horses; we shall have no other beat to-day."</p>
+
+<p>They smiled, bowed to his companion, and gave him answering nod. They
+understood. He was going to use the opportunity to sponsor them. Then he
+would return, and they would have their explanation. They watched him
+bend towards his companion as they rode away.</p>
+
+<p>"It is almost as if we diffused a contagion, you and I," speculated
+Rattier as they turned to Absalaam and the horses, but Aylmer made no
+effort to elaborate the issue. An inexplicable instinct to make the
+incident a personal rather than a general one had overtaken him. As he
+watched Despard ride away with his companion, he felt almost as if he
+were being defrauded. The relations between his cousin and her sister
+made a tie between Miss Van Arlen and himself; surely, in spite of
+everything, they were sufficient foundation upon which to found
+something more than a mere acquaintanceship. In the name of all the
+other decent-minded, clean-living Aylmers, he might have been allowed to
+make his and their protest against being held responsible for the
+knaveries of the head of their house.</p>
+
+<p>So it was with something of dissatisfaction in his aspect that he turned
+to Absalaam and the wounded horse. The Moor saw it but misunderstood its
+purport.</p>
+
+<p>"Merely a flesh wound, Sidi," he hastened to assure Aylmer. "A week,
+perhaps ten days, of rest and he is himself again. A small price to pay
+for so precious a thing as that child's life."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer looked at him with tolerant amusement. Absalaam ibn Said had
+neither harem nor wife; his career had been notoriously one of unrest
+and adventure. These pious opinions issued oddly from his bachelor lips.</p>
+
+<p>"A small price indeed," he agreed pleasantly, "but a hundred youngsters
+run risks little less in the Sôk of Tangier every day."</p>
+
+<p>The Moor made a sweeping motion of the hand, as if he suddenly dropped
+the subject of conversation from a higher plane to a lower.</p>
+
+<p>"The children of the Sôk!" he cried contemptuously.
+"Khabyles&mdash;Arabs&mdash;Susi&mdash;Riffs! What are they? Little more than vermin;
+their ranks are replenished all too quickly as it is! But this one! Here
+we tell a different story, do we not?"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer halted in his examination of the wounded pastern and looked up.
+There was something arresting in the Moor's vehemence.</p>
+
+<p>Absalaam caught the look and shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"The Sidi has not visited Tangier for five or six weeks?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer nodded. And waited. He had had a good deal of experience of the
+Moor and his conversational methods. He was aware that the deferring of
+a climax till it could be launched on a tide of tantalization was the
+chiefest of them.</p>
+
+<p>"Therefore, Sid' Aylmer," continued the Moor, "you have not heard all
+the tales which center round this small one's fortunes?"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer smiled and prepared to give his attention again to his horse. It
+was left to Rattier to ruin the pyramid of stimulation.</p>
+
+<p>"What tales?" he demanded laconically.</p>
+
+<p>Absalaam's brown eyes met both question and questioner with
+melancholy&mdash;almost, indeed, with scorn. How could one titillate, how
+could one embroider, how could one work up to a brave display of
+interest, if bald facts were to be wrung from one at this stage of a
+tale? He sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"Tales of his wealth and importance, Sidi," he answered, in accents of
+subjection.</p>
+
+<p>Rattier drew up the monocle which swung from a ribbon at his buttonhole
+and concentrated his stare upon the Moor.</p>
+
+<p>"Wealth?" he repeated tersely.</p>
+
+<p>Absalaam opened his arms to their widest and held his palms emptily
+outflung.</p>
+
+<p>"Wealth sufficient to buy all Tangier, all Fez, the whole of Mogrheb al
+Acksa, if a tenth of the reports be true. His life, therefore? How can
+one value it!"</p>
+
+<p>He beamed upon them. He had been robbed of his slowly forged
+culmination, but he had, at least, been able to offer them a surprise.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer replaced upon the ground the hoof which he had been holding. He
+looked at the Moor good-humoredly.</p>
+
+<p>"So the gossip mongers of the Sôk credit this infant with riches?" he
+said. "On what evidence, if any?"</p>
+
+<p>Absalaam made a motion towards the sea.</p>
+
+<p>"In the harbor, when you landed, did you observe a yacht, Sidi&mdash;a white
+boat, with lines of gold at her cutwater and figurehead?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"That boat lies there at the service of that child. They have taken for
+him the Villa Eulalia; they have surrounded it with tents of men who are
+there to do no more than guard his safety; there are servants, horses,
+donkeys. The Gibraltar steamer brings packets of provisions or what not
+several times a week. In the town their money flows."</p>
+
+<p>Rattier dropped his eyeglass.</p>
+
+<p>"I think, <i>mon ami</i>," he said slowly, "that gold must be freer with them
+than gratitude. Were you thanked for what you did? I don't seem to
+remember it."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"That is the mystery," he agreed. "I did little enough, but I was going
+to be thanked&mdash;till I disclosed my name. Then," he shrugged his
+shoulders, "you saw."</p>
+
+<p>He meditated a minute. Then he burst out laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"I was not allowed even to hold him, and I am not at all sure that I am
+not his guardian!" he said suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>Rattier's surprise was evident, but he managed to concentrate it in a
+monosyllable.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?" he demurred wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer gave an emphatic nod of the head.</p>
+
+<p>"I was coming home from China at the time of the marriage of my cousin
+Landon with this child's mother. I broke my journey in New York
+specially to attend it. And Landon, merely as a form, asked me as his
+kinsman to be a party to his settlement. In certain circumstances,
+including his death, I was to be one of the trustees for his children."</p>
+
+<p>"And he is dead, this cousin?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, my friend. Merely divorced. Where do I come in&mdash;where?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>DESPARD EXPLAINS</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Suppose we sit down long enough to smoke a cigarette," suggested
+Aylmer. "Perhaps the thump I received just now has had a disastrous
+effect upon my limited intelligence, but I confess that Miss Van Arlen's
+deportment remains a matter of mystery. What have I done?"</p>
+
+<p>Despard laughed gently. He had strolled back from the camp to meet his
+friends and had found them superintending the obsequies of the boar.
+These were performed by a Spaniard, one of the human jetsam cast up
+everywhere along the North African coast by tides of hazard and
+adventure which set from every quarter of the Mediterranean. The true
+son of Islam will not touch the <i>haloof</i>, the unclean jungle pig. And so
+Señor Bernardo Albareda, penniless derelict and strongly suspected of
+being a fugitive from the Spanish convict establishment at Melilla, was
+extracting the tusks. He held them up with a dramatic gesture of
+admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"Twice the length of my central finger, which is not a short one!" he
+remarked airily, and used the occasion to exhibit the elegances of a
+hand which had patently not occupied itself lately with manual toil. One
+or two of his compatriots, who had been among the beaters, were given
+the task of disposing of the flesh and bristles, and departed under his
+escort, carrying their burdens dependent from a couple of poles, the
+Arabs hastening to avoid even the shadow of contamination which they
+cast, and spitting with undisguised disfavor as they passed. Despard
+accepted his comrade's invitation and joined the other two upon the seat
+which they had made of a fallen mimosa stump in the shadow of the olive.</p>
+
+<p>The major took out his cigarette case, found a match, and sent several
+tiny clouds rolling up among the branches before he spoke. And his
+answer was another question.</p>
+
+<p>"You read the details of the Landon divorce case?" he hazarded.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Aylmer. "One could hardly escape it."</p>
+
+<p>"You remember, then, that at the close the respondent was very nearly
+committed for contempt of court?"</p>
+
+<p>"He lost his temper, or his head," agreed Aylmer, "and threatened his
+wife. I don't think any one attached much importance to his vaporings."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" Despard nodded his head thoughtfully. "I suppose that would be the
+point of view with most people."</p>
+
+<p>"Not with yourself?" suggested Aylmer.</p>
+
+<p>Despard shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I have known the Van Arlens for many years," he said quietly. "Perhaps
+you have forgotten that my own mother was an American, that a good deal
+of my boyhood was passed in New York."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know you knew the Van Arlens; in fact, I could hardly suspect
+it, when to the best of my remembrance you never even discussed the
+Landon divorce case with me."</p>
+
+<p>Despard nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, in a dry, unemotional voice. "I did not discuss it with
+any one. And you, moreover, were an Aylmer."</p>
+
+<p>He was silent for a minute and the other two looked at him a little
+curiously. This was not the Despard they were accustomed to, a sportsman
+whose hobbies engrossed him to the exclusion of most other topics. This
+was a man who had the force of pent feeling behind his words.</p>
+
+<p>"The Van Arlens naturally did not seek outside society at the time of
+the case," he continued, "but I was on leave, and I saw a good deal of
+them. Has it occurred to you," he added suddenly, "that this child is
+not only heir to the Landon title but to the Van Arlen millions&mdash;at
+present?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Aylmer, "but I suppose he is the only direct male
+descendant."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you realize what that means in America? To be a Landon, only a
+barony, though I grant you an old one, is a small thing compared with
+being the grandson of&mdash;the richest man in the world."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer was silent. The point of view was one that did not easily present
+itself to his British complacency. Rattier, too, though he nodded
+assent, did it without vehemence and with a tinge of reserve. Of a
+royalist clique, transatlantic caste was outside his experience.</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate your cousin Landon realized it at last in realizing what he
+was losing. He moved every legal lever he could lay his hands upon to
+retain the custody of his child and failed. He is to see him twice a
+year, for an hour. You will understand that his chances of winning his
+child's profitable affections are too limited for his taste."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer's brows met in a tiny frown of perplexity.</p>
+
+<p>"Profitable affection?" he meditated.</p>
+
+<p>"John is eight. In thirteen years he will be of age. His father then
+will be forty-five, and quite capable of getting much enjoyment out of
+his son's unlimited income."</p>
+
+<p>Rattier gave a little hissing intake of the breath.</p>
+
+<p>"This Landon!" he murmured admiringly.</p>
+
+<p>"The Court decided, also, that the child must be brought up, for nine
+months of every year, at any rate, in England. This was modified, after
+medical examination and certificate, to include Europe and North
+Africa."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer made a little startled motion which dropped the ash of his
+cigarette upon his knee.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?" he questioned. "Medical certificate?"</p>
+
+<p>"Phthisis," rejoined Despard, quietly. "The little chap has the seeds of
+it, but with care the seeds need never come to growth. But he has to
+winter in the South, invariably."</p>
+
+<p>Rattier made a tiny caressing motion of the hand which seemed to imply
+infinite commiseration. Aylmer expressed the same emotion in a little
+inarticulate murmur.</p>
+
+<p>"And so&mdash;?" he questioned. "And so&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"And so Tangier," said Despard, "which has other conveniences, for the
+moneyed. The law, here, is always behind the dollars, is it not?"</p>
+
+<p>The other two looked at him debatingly.</p>
+
+<p>"The law?" mused Aylmer. "The law?"</p>
+
+<p>"They have already had experience of it in Italy and Spain&mdash;the Van
+Arlens. A man like Landon can make use of it there to further his own
+purposes, against the law. The Spanish and Italian police? Can you
+expect them to interfere against a man's dealings with his own child?
+What do they know of the fiats of the British Courts of Chancery? He
+made two very nearly successful attempts to get possession of the
+boy,&mdash;one at San Remo, one at Taormina."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer gave a little low whistle of comprehension. Rattier nodded, still
+with a sort of grudging admiration of this English lord's talents and
+persistence.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you got it now?" went on Despard. "Do you see where they stand?
+Here, under the protections of the Bashaw, where Landon can never
+overbid them, they enjoy a security which they can obtain nowhere else
+outside America or Great Britain."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer's eyes filled with a sudden shadow of loathing.</p>
+
+<p>"The scoundrel!" he cried. "The miscreant!"</p>
+
+<p>Despard nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite so," he agreed. "The epithets any decent-minded man would apply
+to him. Unfortunately, he is without shame, reckless, and heedless of
+everything but his passionate desire to turn defeat into victory. He
+will stop at nothing to get even with those who have so far triumphed
+over him."</p>
+
+<p>"And the boy's mother lives here&mdash;with her sister?" said Aylmer.</p>
+
+<p>Despard did not reply for a moment. There was a queer pause and catch in
+his voice as if he sought uneasily for breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Van Arlen is here, and the old man, Jacob Van Arlen, the
+grandfather."</p>
+
+<p>"And the mother?" asked Aylmer, with a note of surprise in his voice.
+"Lady Landon, or does one call her Mrs. Van Arlen?"</p>
+
+<p>"She is broken down in health," answered Despard, in a curiously wooden,
+expressionless accent. "She has been&mdash;recommended to try for at least
+six months the effects of an Alpine Sanatorium."</p>
+
+<p>The two listeners understood, or thought they understood, and muttered
+their sympathy in an almost inaudible chorus.</p>
+
+<p>"Insane?" they whispered. "Insane?"</p>
+
+<p>Despard smote his hand down upon the rotting wood.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" he cried fiercely. "Her brain is as sound as yours or mine, but
+her heart has been frozen. By God! Try to think, imagine, if you can,
+what hell a woman has lived in who was the wife of Landon!"</p>
+
+<p>His passion seemed to choke him. His eyes glowed, his chest heaved, he
+was another man from the one who had sat down smilingly to smoke a
+cigarette with them a few minutes before. And the passion of his wrath
+infected his hearers. Imagination painted pictures in their brains;
+they, too, breathed a little faster as they listened.</p>
+
+<p>The gust of Despard's passion passed and left him calm again. He gave a
+tiny shrug of the shoulders, which seemed to imply apology. He began to
+speak with ordinary unshaken accents.</p>
+
+<p>"It was I who suggested Tangier to the Van Arlens. I am in garrison at
+Gibraltar; I can see them at frequent intervals; I introduced them to
+the Foreign Colony here. The Anstruthers have done their best to make
+them at home. I got Absalaam to be their dragoman, and I don't think you
+will find a better or more versatile one between Tripoli and Mogador.
+They have the most suitable villa outside the town. The Bashaw has been
+given to understand the situation, has been generously tipped, and is
+doing his best to keep his side of the bargain. The men who guard them
+are picked and know that matters will reach an extreme of unpleasantness
+for them if their vigilance is allowed to relax. All has been done that
+can be done. And yet&mdash;?" He shrugged his shoulders again. "They share
+the anxieties of Damocles," he added. "They live under a sword which may
+fall at any moment."</p>
+
+<p>He rose, flicked the cigarette ash from his sleeve, and made a motion
+towards the hill.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we be getting on?" he asked. "The sun waits for no one."</p>
+
+<p>They rose slowly and began to follow the distant line of beaters. Aylmer
+linked his hand through Despard's arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Van Arlen understood ... what we feel ... all we Aylmers, about
+Landon?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Despard hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"I put it to her, strongly," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>There was something not entirely convincing in the reply. Aylmer's voice
+showed anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but she cannot imagine that we, or any decent-minded man, could
+view him with anything but loathing?"</p>
+
+<p>There was still a perceptible pause before Despard's reply.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't tell her yesterday that you were coming," he said. "Indeed,
+Anstruther only informed me last night. I thought it would be well that
+you should arrive and make a good impression before she learned your
+name. Then, you see, as it happened, you exploded it on her rather
+startlingly. And she, at the time, was rather shaken."</p>
+
+<p>"And this means&mdash;?" said Aylmer, impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"It means," answered Despard, debatingly, "that your name recalls
+memories to her which, unfortunately, do not prepossess you in her
+favor. And, I think, that, being a woman ... your service to the
+child ... your saving of him ... under the circumstances ... acted
+against you."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer turned and looked into his friend's face with amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but I don't understand!" he stammered. "That's unjust!"</p>
+
+<p>Despard shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Not entirely," he demurred. "It's feminine; it's jealousy. It is hard
+to her that you should have saved the child's life. I could see that,
+and combated it, during the few minutes in which we rode back to camp."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer was frowning. He dropped Despard's arm, thrust his own hands into
+his pockets, and stared out into the distance. He shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" he said suddenly. "I can't quite follow it. No woman with that
+girl's ... eyes ... would be so ... shabby ... if she understood!"</p>
+
+<p>Rattier gave him an impulsive little nod.</p>
+
+<p>"If?" he enunciated slowly. "If?"</p>
+
+<p>Despard threw the Frenchman a grateful glance.</p>
+
+<p>"That's it," he agreed. "His name is Aylmer. So far she has not got
+beyond that fact, my friend."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer looked round at them both. There was something calculating in the
+way in which he surveyed the two, as if they were factors in a situation
+which had hitherto eluded him, but which was now beginning to take
+definite shape. And his lips had set one upon the other in a rigid line.
+His chin seemed to have attained incongruous squareness beneath the
+suave droop of his moustache.</p>
+
+<p>"She's got to believe in me!" he announced grimly. "I won't let her be
+unworthy of herself."</p>
+
+<p>And the other two noticed that as he said it he nodded to himself two or
+three times decidedly. He drew himself up; unconsciously his carriage
+grew stiffer. It was as if he had mapped out and settled a matter
+definitely. He began to talk and laugh naturally, and on other subjects.
+And if any allusion to the day's adventure outcropped into the
+conversation he did not avoid it, but simply passed it by without
+comment. He had taken his line. The incident, apart from his resolution,
+was closed.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>As the three strolled up to the camp a man rose from the group which sat
+in the shadow of the awning at the door of the largest tent and came out
+to meet them. He was tall, white-haired, aquiline of feature. And his
+pervading characteristic seemed to be gravity. His figure and face alike
+were unbending.</p>
+
+<p>He made them a studied little bow.</p>
+
+<p>"My daughter tells me, Captain Aylmer," he said, "that I have to thank
+you for your prompt action on behalf of my grandson. You saved him from
+a situation of grave peril."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer realized that this was without doubt Jacob Van Arlen. He
+suspected, also, why the old man had thus addressed him without waiting
+for an introduction. For men who are introduced, amid the intimate
+sociabilities of the Tangier Tent Club, at any rate, usually shake
+hands. Van Arlen's right hand held his sombrero; his left was at his
+side.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer returned the bow.</p>
+
+<p>"I did no more than what had obviously to be done," he said quietly.
+"Despard merits your thanks more than I."</p>
+
+<p>The other looked at the major with a distinct tinge of relief.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that so?" he asked hopefully.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" said Despard, laconically. "Your thanks are not in the least
+misdirected, Mr. Van Arlen."</p>
+
+<p>The old man made another courteous inclination of the head.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I could not so far have misunderstood my daughter," he
+answered. "I hope, Captain Aylmer, that while you remain in Tangier I
+may be permitted to serve you in any way which you like to command.
+Perhaps, though, your stay is short?"</p>
+
+<p>And there was hopefulness in this last query. It was patent amid the
+studied urbanity of the tone. In spite of himself Aylmer smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"I am a bird of passage," he said lightly. "I manage to take short leave
+for most of the Tent Club meetings, to which Colonel Anstruther is kind
+enough to make me welcome."</p>
+
+<p>He strode forward as he spoke and began to exchange greetings with Mrs.
+Anstruther, who rose to meet him. He had to hear the morning's story
+re-discussed, exclaimed over, criticized. He bore it, without
+impatience, but with a certain aloofness which gave the subject no
+chance to endure. He managed skilfully, at last, to divert the
+conversation into other channels.</p>
+
+<p>Anstruther, who had sat between his wife and Miss Van Arlen, had risen
+to welcome Commandant Rattier. The mishap to the latter's horse
+engrossed their attention; they wandered off together to examine the
+wounded limb. After a moment's hesitation Aylmer sank into the vacant
+chair.</p>
+
+<p>He looked round at the girl. Her eyes met his, but her hand, as if
+acting by some automatic command of the brain, touched her skirt and
+pulled it toward herself, and away from him. His lips grew a thought
+more rigid behind the veiling moustache. But his voice was entirely
+divested of any semblance of pique.</p>
+
+<p>"And how is my small cousin?" he asked pleasantly. "Has Selim persuaded
+him to take that long-deferred siesta?"</p>
+
+<p>Old Van Arlen stirred restlessly on his seat. He looked at Aylmer, his
+lips moved as if to speech, and then closed again. Miss Van Arlen sat up
+very straight.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean my nephew?" she asked frigidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Your nephew and my cousin," said Aylmer, cheerfully. "I hardly expected
+to find a relation here when I started this morning."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes grew stormy with suspicion, almost with hate.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure?" she demanded suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite sure," said Aylmer, halting for a scarcely perceptible moment
+before her meaning reached him. "I have found only friends&mdash;so far."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>MR. MILLER</h3>
+
+
+<p>Outside their own country two British types carry their caste marks
+patently. They are the tourist and the officer. Gibraltar abounds with
+both, the company of the first having an occasional and transient
+superiority when it is swollen by Transatlantic arrivals or intermittent
+yachting cruisers. But the officers of the garrison and their wives and
+daughters are the reigning members of the informal club which makes
+Society on the Rock. They know each other, they discuss each other; the
+longer they stay the more parochial grow their interests. Newcomers
+undergo a period of silent probation. They cannot slip in unobserved.
+The who and the whence test is applied to each with unction, sometimes
+without justice, but almost invariably with good-humor. As a consequence
+everybody, within limits, knows something about everybody else.</p>
+
+<p>There are exceptions, and one, an olive-complexioned, gray-clad,
+gray-haired, dark-eyed man, was walking steadily down the Waterport one
+sunny afternoon as a rush of cabs towards the custom-house proclaimed
+the incoming of an important steamer. Mr. William Miller had a
+pleasantly situated cottage in the South Town. The postman knew that he
+had many correspondents in Spain, England, Germany, and elsewhere.
+Moorish visitors from across the straits were not infrequent at a small
+office which he retained in Waterport Street. Men of letters, desiring
+information on recondite subjects, separated themselves from the
+frivolous landing parties of Messrs. Cook and called at the same
+address. No one had ever tapped the sources of Mr. Miller's encyclopædic
+knowledge in vain. No one had found him otherwise than affable. And
+though it was understood that his activities were literary, no resident
+or tourist had successfully probed the nature of his life-work.</p>
+
+<p>The wives of many colonels had recognized this and had flung themselves
+with ardor against the breastworks of his imperturbability. Not one of
+them could look back with pride on any action in which they had won even
+a temporary advantage. Mr. Miller spoke freely, showed an intimate
+knowledge of men and manners throughout the civilized world, and
+appeared to manifest pleasure in sociabilities. His only attempts to
+return these lay in small but eclectic tea-parties whereat he displayed
+hoards of artistic treasures and discoursed learnedly of carpet dye and
+porcelain marks.</p>
+
+<p>But he was by no means a ladies' man. He accepted, and was welcome at
+the hospitalities of many a mess or gun room. He sang well and could
+play a more than ordinary effective accompaniment to a comic song after
+hearing the air whistled half a dozen times by its would-be interpreter.
+The impersonality of his social attitude prevented his being popular,
+but he was an institution. As he walked along he bowed, nodded, smiled;
+obviously he knew everybody. Obviously everybody knew him.</p>
+
+<p>As he walked across the sunlit square and dived into the deeply shadowed
+tunnel which is the Waterport, a tender fussed noisily up to the quay.
+Mr. Miller eyed the passengers on its deck keenly.</p>
+
+<p>The steamer was evidently a White Star in from New York. The load of
+colossal trunks upon the deck would have told him that apart from the
+accent of the passengers and the flag at the masthead. Baggage agents
+began to dart here and there; Mr. Cook's uniformed interpreters were in
+the forefront of the fray; Spanish cab runners yelled and grimaced.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Miller stood aside without attempting to force a way into the
+tumult. His hands rested quietly together on the hilt of his cane. His
+brow was contemplative and unruffled. Certainly if he awaited anything
+he was in no hurry to find it.</p>
+
+<p>All things come to those who wait, and Mr. Miller had not to wait long.
+A man strode suddenly out of the custom-house gate, thrust aside the
+Spanish porter who was snatching at his handbag, and made a beckoning
+motion towards a cab.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Miller strode quietly forward and reached it simultaneously with the
+fare.</p>
+
+<p>The man looked at him with a sudden irritable alertness and then broke
+into a grin.</p>
+
+<p>"You're here," he said, and flung his bag upon the seat. The other
+responded with a tiny shrug as if he deprecated the platitudinous nature
+of the remark. He motioned the man to take his seat, sat down beside
+him, and told the driver the name of an hotel. "Your man is looking
+after your heavy luggage?" he questioned.</p>
+
+<p>The other nodded impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said. "Not that there's much to look after." He turned and
+glanced into his companion's face. "I'm getting down to bed-rock now;
+nothing left to waste on trivialities. I nearly came second class."</p>
+
+<p>Miller's eyebrows rose.</p>
+
+<p>"That would have been unnecessary." He speculated.</p>
+
+<p>"Imbecile, as it turned out," agreed the man. "There were some
+bridge-playing Southerners on board, old school, couldn't bring
+themselves to be civil to the New Yorkers, but ready to take an
+Englishman, and a lord, moreover, to their hearts. No high play, but I'm
+eight hundred dollars up on the voyage."</p>
+
+<p>Miller nodded placidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Bed-rock is quite a way down yet," he smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Not if expenses are to mount as you advised me in your last letter,"
+snapped the other. "Has anything been done?"</p>
+
+<p>Miller shook his head slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Force is beyond us," he said, "for we don't possess it. Bribery is out
+of the question; there is no one left by the other side who has not had
+his price. Opportunity may be ours. We must await it."</p>
+
+<p>"And waiting costs twenty pounds a week!"</p>
+
+<p>The gray man turned his opened palm outwards with a deprecative motion
+which was not English at all.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Lord Landon, how can Opportunity be seized if there is no one
+to meet her when she appears?"</p>
+
+<p>Landon gave a dissatisfied grunt.</p>
+
+<p>"How many lacqueys have you set to wait on her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Six," said Miller, succinctly. "Six men of action, who would have
+succeeded before now, but for an accident."</p>
+
+<p>Landon's face took on the eager expression of a wolf to whom a distant
+taint is brought by the evening wind.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?" he cried. "There has been a chance, then; their defences are not
+impregnable?"</p>
+
+<p>Miller shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"They have been strengthened since," he said diffidently. "But the weak
+spot in them is the child himself. He has never had, if you will pardon
+the remark, proper control. He is frankly disobedient of the precautions
+with which they surround him."</p>
+
+<p>Landon grinned.</p>
+
+<p>"There's my blood in him," he chuckled. "And, by God, I'm fond of the
+little toad, too. It's not only to spite her, Miller, or for the money
+that's in it. I never took the trouble to whop him; I believe he'd come
+to me of his own accord, if he had the chance."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a large if," suggested Mr. Miller, politely.</p>
+
+<p>Landon made no retort. His face had assumed a meditative mask; his lips
+were firmly pressed together; he had the effect of one who calculates
+pro against con.</p>
+
+<p>"That's why I think it's time I took a hand," he said suddenly. "We'll
+knock off three of your six, Miller. I am prepared to be a host in
+myself."</p>
+
+<p>For the moment the other said nothing. They had swung out of the
+Waterport Street and turned the sharp corner which brought them to the
+entrance of the hotel. He listened quietly as his companion demanded the
+number of the room engaged for him, received his letters, and entered
+the lift. He accompanied him silently. It was not till they were left
+alone that he pulled a pocket-book out, tranquilly turned the leaves,
+and consulted an entry.</p>
+
+<p>"I note that I have had no remittance from you, Lord Landon," he
+announced, "since November."</p>
+
+<p>"Six weeks ago," agreed Landon, languidly. "Six times twenty is a
+hundred and twenty. You reinforce my argument, my good Miller. A hundred
+and twenty pounds gone and you show me&mdash;nothing."</p>
+
+<p>The other coughed a dry, perfunctory little cough.</p>
+
+<p>"As far as I am concerned, the money is, as you say, gone," he allowed,
+"but you have just come by one hundred and sixty sovereigns owing to the
+complacence of these Southern gentlemen on board your boat. That puts us
+right and safeguards another fortnight."</p>
+
+<p>Landon nodded and answered in a voice as dry as his own.</p>
+
+<p>"That is a matter for discussion," he intimated. "I should like to hear
+these expenses justified to some appreciable extent. What was the chance
+which failed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Though it failed," rejoined Miller, "it proved the advantage of
+constant vigilance. The child separated himself from his guardians in
+the very midst of the late afternoon traffic and got into the hands of
+one of our men. They reached the pier together; they were within an ace
+of success. Then Fate interfered&mdash;it must have been Fate," he
+interpolated with the ghost of a grin&mdash;"because her instrument was of
+your own house."</p>
+
+<p>Landon came to a sudden halt in the opening of an envelope.</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" he cried quickly. "A relation of mine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Captain John Aylmer, R.A., Assistant Secretary to the new Military
+Works Commission," answered Miller, sedately.</p>
+
+<p>Landon swore. Then suddenly he began to laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"It's quaint," he conceded. "It's damned quaint, Miller. And he
+did&mdash;what?"</p>
+
+<p>Miller shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Interested himself in the situation, caused a delay which was fatal,
+for the moment, to our success. He cross-questioned the child and our
+man had to save himself, alone."</p>
+
+<p>Landon laughed again.</p>
+
+<p>"And he knew, this cousin of mine? He knew whose child it was?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not then, but now, I imagine. He has met him since, at the Tent Club.
+He has also met your late father-in-law."</p>
+
+<p>"What? The Kite&mdash;old Jacob&mdash;he's there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Personally superintending a situation which gets daily more
+impenetrable, for us. Each fright we give them adds another palisade to
+the defence."</p>
+
+<p>Landon took up the letters which he had laid down and went on opening
+and glancing through them. He pursed up his lips into an obstinately set
+expression; he assumed the air of a bargainer who has reached the limit
+of his purpose. For he fully understood the drift of Mr. Miller's
+remarks.</p>
+
+<p>"We had better be plain with each other," he said at last. "My little
+expedition to the States has been a failure. As a matrimonial
+proposition I am, for the present, out of the running. They told me to
+come again in a year's time. Title-hunting American women have short
+memories, but some beastly reporter recognized me and ran two columns of
+reminiscences of the trial. That queered me, and after all the decree is
+not made absolute for another six months."</p>
+
+<p>"Is this anticipatory of the announcement that those eight hundred
+dollars are the only support between you and bed-rock after all?"</p>
+
+<p>"You jump at my meaning. I'm going to take over the duties of your six,
+or of some of them, at any rate."</p>
+
+<p>The other's gray eyes reviewed his companion with a keenly calculating
+glance. There was no irritation in it, rather there was satisfaction.
+Mr. Miller did not present the aspect of a man whose chances of
+receiving a debt of one hundred and twenty pounds had been made
+doubtful. He had more the look of a bull speculator watching a tape as
+the eighths and sixteenths are added every few minutes to the stock
+which he commands.</p>
+
+<p>"You will fail," he said drily. "Without funds you must fail. One poor
+man, in spite of the story books, can do nothing against a hundred and
+wealth."</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly," said Landon. "But one may be permitted to try."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said the other, stolidly. "One may not be permitted, in Tangier."</p>
+
+<p>Landon looked up and for a moment silence hung heavily between the two
+men. The one who stood was the picture of heavy, imperturbable
+resolution. Landon, sitting back in his chair, was animate with energy,
+with a sort of tenseness which was almost magnetic. It was as if a
+panther faced a rhinoceros.</p>
+
+<p>Then Landon shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I being threatened, my dear Miller?" he asked quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"You are being informed," said the other. "The Syndicate which I
+represent is willing to finance you, for an adequate return. Without
+that it proposes to make Tangier an impossible residence for you."</p>
+
+<p>Landon stared his surprise and his obvious relief.</p>
+
+<p>"They are going to speculate in me?" He pondered for a moment. "I don't
+promise, or I haven't promised, that I shall allow old Jacob to buy the
+child back, if we get him, at all."</p>
+
+<p>Miller nodded weightily.</p>
+
+<p>"That does not matter to us," he announced. "That is as you like."</p>
+
+<p>Landon's eyes were still wide and debating.</p>
+
+<p>"Then your return comes&mdash;where?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"We are willing to wait for it," said the other. "The first service we
+require from you is that you will renew your acquaintance with your
+cousin, Captain Aylmer, and endeavor to remove the distaste which I
+regret to think he feels for your company."</p>
+
+<p>Landon bent forward, leaned his elbows on the table and his chin on his
+closed fists. He stared at his companion with a concentrated,
+dispassionate examination which seemed to probe and fathom through the
+depths of the other's impenetrability.</p>
+
+<p>Miller met the scrutiny with no other manifestation than an, if
+possible, increase of apathy.</p>
+
+<p>Landon dropped his hands slowly upon the table and gave his head a tiny
+shake.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand you," he said. "Why has my cousin a distaste for my
+society? We have never been in collision. As a matter of fact, he was
+best man at my wedding."</p>
+
+<p>"It is to be supposed that he read the account of your divorce," said
+the other, stolidly. "He has now made the acquaintance of your wife's
+relations."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," said Landon, slowly. "Is that all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it enough? Are you generally received?"</p>
+
+<p>There was something callous, almost brutal, in the man's tone. The tiny
+spot of color which began to burn in Landon's sallow cheek was evidence
+that he recognized it.</p>
+
+<p>"So," he answered, "I am to eat dirt at the hands of Captain John
+Aylmer? I am to appear to like it? Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because," said Miller, dispassionately, "you are practically
+penniless. That is your side of the question. Our side is that your
+cousin happens to be what he is&mdash;Secretary to the Military Works
+Commission, who hold the immediate future of Gibraltar in their hands."</p>
+
+<p>For the second time, and through a longer silence, the two stared at
+each other. As the fiery torch of comprehension burned brightly on
+Landon's face, rose to his forehead, seemed, indeed, to gleam in his
+eyes, his lips, which were at first grim and rigid, curled slowly into a
+sneer.</p>
+
+<p>"By the Lord!" he swore. "By the Lord, Miller, you have an impudence!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have a knowledge of values," said the other, impassively. "I wish to
+get my commission both ways. I expect it from you, because you get the
+job from no one else. I expect it from my employers, because you are
+practically the only tool at present, which they can use. I am perfectly
+open with you."</p>
+
+<p>"As open as the Pit!" snarled Landon. "As candid as midnight! Let's have
+a taste of it plainly. What is it you want of me&mdash;robbery?"</p>
+
+<p>Miller made a gesture of deprecation.</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to&mdash;borrow&mdash;unknown to your cousin, certain books, the
+nature of which will be indicated to you in detail."</p>
+
+<p>"And if I don't?"</p>
+
+<p>"You must, at any rate, try."</p>
+
+<p>"And if I won't?"</p>
+
+<p>Miller smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"We don't discuss absurdities."</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing manifestly menacing in this, but there was a sense of
+finality. It reached Landon like a shaft of cold air blown in through
+the suddenly opened door. Mentally he flinched from it; he lifted his
+shoulders into a shrug of resignation.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are his quarters?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the South Town near my own cottage. For the moment that does not
+matter. You meet him to-morrow, by accident. You do not know, you see,
+that he is here?"</p>
+
+<p>He consulted a small time-table.</p>
+
+<p>"We should be on the quay about three-thirty to-morrow, when the steamer
+gets in from Tangier."</p>
+
+<p>For the second time Landon expressed surrender with a passive shrug.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>LANDON'S NEW PROFESSION</h3>
+
+
+<p>As Despard and Aylmer passed out of the dark of the Waterport into the
+sunlight of the square, two men, who walked in front of them, halted,
+shook hands, appeared to exchange an informal farewell, and separated.
+One, clad in gray flannels and a gray sombrero, turned to the left and
+began to mount the ramp behind the barracks. The other strolled slowly
+on.</p>
+
+<p>The two soldiers fresh from their crossing of the straits from Africa
+were hailed and questioned more than once by comrades or friends who had
+not been fortunate enough to share in leave for the Tent Club meeting
+and were anxious for the last details of sport. How did pig run this
+time? Had such and such coverts been burned as was reported? What luck
+had they had personally? Despard and Aylmer had to halt half a dozen
+times within the first two furlongs. They began to regret that they had
+not taken a cab.</p>
+
+<p>The man who strolled along in front of them halted, too, here and there.
+He did not appear to look round, but whenever acquaintances buttonholed
+the pair behind him it was noticeable that shop windows or Moorish curio
+sellers claimed his attention. He lingered, indeed, opposite a
+well-known book shop till his sudden resumption of his stroll brought
+him into collision with the others at the exact moment of their
+passing.</p>
+
+<p>He started, muttered a perfunctory apology, and then made an
+exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>"Jack!" he cried gladly, and held out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer met his cousin's glance, first with surprise, then with a sudden
+stiffening of his lips, finally with frowning. He gave a side glance at
+Despard.</p>
+
+<p>The major's face was transfigured with wrath and loathing. He was
+looking at Landon as he might have looked at a poisonous reptile. He
+drew back a step of instinctive repulsion.</p>
+
+<p>Landon gave a bitter little laugh. He still held out his hand defiantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it fit to be shaken, Jack?" he asked. "Have I to thank the
+Galahad at your side for that?"</p>
+
+<p>Despard's eyes grew grim and set. He turned to Aylmer and nodded coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"See you later," he suggested, without another look in Landon's
+direction, and passed on his way with unhesitating strides. Venomously,
+malignantly, Landon watched him go.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't wonder he won't face me!" he cried with well-simulated passion.
+"By God, I don't!"</p>
+
+<p>He turned and stared at his cousin. Aylmer met his gaze coolly,
+unhesitatingly, and without a trace of relenting. For the second time
+Landon's bitter laugh escaped him.</p>
+
+<p>"You've had his version?" he said. "Well, I don't altogether wonder at
+you in that case."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand you," said Aylmer, quietly. "The public prints have
+made it quite evident that you're not fit for the society of decent men,
+if that is what you mean."</p>
+
+<p>"No!" snarled Landon. "It isn't what I mean. What I mean is that that
+blackguard who's just left us, curse him! has won all round. He took my
+wife from me and now he's taken my reputation, my honor, and he's gone
+far to take every friend I have. But by the Lord who made me, Jack, I
+thought that you might be left with some sense of justice!"</p>
+
+<p>"Justice?"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer's voice made an echo to Landon's. "Justice?" he repeated. "You
+got that, or less than that in most men's opinion, in the divorce
+court."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't!" said Landon, fiercely. "Ah, they made a pretty story of it!
+The blackguard who knocked his wife about, who thrashed his child, who
+took his wife's allowance and flung it under a dunghill of drink and
+devilry. That was me! Who gave evidence? The wife herself, who has since
+gone into a lunatic asylum. Servants who were bought with that old
+miser's gold. The man who wanted her&mdash;Despard!"</p>
+
+<p>In spite of himself Aylmer gave an almost imperceptible quiver of
+surprise.</p>
+
+<p>Landon laughed again.</p>
+
+<p>"Does that touch you?" he cried. "He wouldn't tell you that. Not of how
+he schemed, and laid traps, and sunk pitfalls for me, to catch me, as I
+was caught. I'm no saint, Lord knows, but I've never sunk to that. I've
+had my game and paid my price, but, by God, I've never cheated!"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer's eyes still met his with level contempt.</p>
+
+<p>"I know Despard, I've known him since boyhood," he answered. "He does
+not do these things."</p>
+
+<p>Landon shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course! I'm down and you're all stamping me into the mud, lower and
+lower. You've all taken the accepted view, and when I cry out against it
+I'm told I've had my chance. So I did, but it was never a fair one."</p>
+
+<p>"You have still six months in which to give your version to the King's
+Proctor if you have any new facts to support your statement," said
+Aylmer, coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"Facts! How am I to get the benefit of facts when the other side can
+manufacture answers for them with a dollar for my every penny? I've
+supplied 'facts' to the King's Proctor till I'm sick of the sight of his
+office paper assuring me that he has 'no evidence to justify my
+contentions.' I can give facts enough. It's a hearing I want&mdash;an
+impartial hearing!"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"You got it," he said doggedly. "You got it!"</p>
+
+<p>Landon rapped his stick upon the pavement.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you I didn't!" he cried. "I tell you that I could tell you
+things that would prove to you&mdash;yes, prove&mdash;that the whole job was got
+up by that scoundrel who's just left us&mdash;got up by him to steal my wife
+from me. I ask you to hear me; I appeal to you to listen to my side; I
+appeal to your sense of justice!"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer turned up the street.</p>
+
+<p>"If you think there is anything to be gained by it, say on!" he
+answered. "You can walk with me as far as my quarters."</p>
+
+<p>"You won't ask me in?" sneered Landon. "That's more than I can expect."</p>
+
+<p>"Some of the fellows might look in on me&mdash;decent fellows," explained
+Aylmer, drily.</p>
+
+<p>Landon gave a little gasp, halted, and leaned suddenly against the wall.
+He looked up at his cousin. His lips worked, he stammered, he broke into
+a panting storm of sobs.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't deserve that! My God! I didn't deserve that!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer looked down at him and a tiny thrill of compunction shot through
+him. He hesitated. He did not believe in Landon's protestations. He
+knew, in every instinct of his nature, that Landon was a scoundrel. But
+he began to remember that it had not always been so. Things that had
+brought them together as boys came back to him. His memory suddenly
+framed a picture of that wedding nine years ago. Landon had gone to meet
+his bride gallantly, adoringly, that day. He had loved her then. Yes, he
+could not have acted that, he had loved her then.</p>
+
+<p>And Landon, watching narrowly his cousin's face, read the emotions as
+they chased each other across it as if they had been writ upon an open
+page. He hugged himself mentally.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what knocks him!" he told himself triumphantly. "The abased
+ingenuous sinner! A little more of that and, Great Nicholas! I have him
+by the short hairs!"</p>
+
+<p>He pulled himself together with a well-acted effort. He turned and drew
+back.</p>
+
+<p>"You cur!" he cried. "You cur, to hit at a man who's down!"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer's tanned cheek showed through it a tiny flush. The dart had gone
+home.</p>
+
+<p>"When you prove that an apology's due, I'll make it."</p>
+
+<p>"In the street!" sneered Landon. "I'm to shout my wrongs, tell you all
+the intimate story of my provocation before the town. Thank you for
+nothing!"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer made a little movement of the hand which implied irritation.</p>
+
+<p>"You can come to my quarters," he said, "but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"This evening?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, this evening I'm dining out. You can come to my quarters. Until you
+give me reason to alter my opinion I don't introduce you to my friends.
+Is that understood?"</p>
+
+<p>Landon stood silent for another instant before he answered slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he agreed. "You've read and been told enough to excuse you. Yes,
+I'll come. And in half an hour you'll be begging my pardon, or&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Or what?" said Aylmer, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Or I shall know you've made up your mind not to be convinced."</p>
+
+<p>And then a sudden taciturnity overtook him. He marched along at his
+cousin's side, his eyes bent upon the pavement, his brows contracted. He
+had the appearance of one who considers deeply. John Aylmer made no
+attempt to resume conversation. He concluded that Landon was either
+piecing together a story out of unpromising material which would leave
+considerable gaps to be filled or, which was more likely, evolving one
+out of his vivid imagination. In either case he was content to leave the
+issue to be ascertained in the privacy of his quarters.</p>
+
+<p>They gained them uninterrupted. Aylmer made a sign towards a chair.
+Landon, after an expressive glance towards the Tantalus on the
+sideboard, sat down. Aylmer did not take the hint; he was in no mood to
+offer hospitality to this man, even to the inconsiderable extent of a
+whisky and soda.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at Landon.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" he demanded curtly.</p>
+
+<p>Landon gave another look towards the sideboard.</p>
+
+<p>"I've hinted once," he said, with a laugh which he tried to make genial
+and offhand. "This time I'll ask bluntly for it."</p>
+
+<p>"For what?"</p>
+
+<p>There was no encouragement in Aylmer's voice, and his eyes were hard and
+unrelenting.</p>
+
+<p>"For a drink."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose I hear your statement first," he suggested. "Then you can have
+a drink here, or elsewhere."</p>
+
+<p>Landon rose to his feet with a dramatic jerk. He turned abruptly towards
+the door.</p>
+
+<p>"That's enough, by God! that's enough!" he swore savagely. "I've taken
+your insolence once; I'll not take it again. I'm not fit to be offered a
+drink in your rooms; I'm to sit like some damned flunkey giving his
+character while you cross-examine me. I'll see you on the far side of
+Hell first."</p>
+
+<p>He reached the door, halted, and stood with hand on it, looking round.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll be sorry for this," he said. "I tell you that, when the truth of
+it comes to be known, as it'll be known some day, you'll be sorry for
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer looked at him with a steady contemplation which showed no signs
+of clemency. Landon flung open the door and passed out.</p>
+
+<p>"Cursed prig!" he snapped and descended the stairs into the street.
+Aylmer, with a slight shrug of the shoulders, turned towards his
+dressing-room.</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes later Landon was enjoying his drink in Mr. Miller's
+pleasantly furnished apartments. His host had supplied it this time
+without any demur&mdash;with alacrity. He watched his guest dispose of it
+and hastened to offer another. This, too, disappeared down Landon's
+throat and a third was placed solicitously at his elbow. Not till these
+arrangements had been completed did Mr. Miller smirch his hospitality
+with any hint of business. But though he differed from Aylmer in this,
+he imitated him in the directness of his <i>pour-parlers</i>. He, indeed,
+used the same monosyllable.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" he said inquiringly.</p>
+
+<p>Landon nodded with much satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"I got in," he said briefly. "I was only there two minutes, at a liberal
+computation, but I've found out and done all I required. He's dining out
+to-night. The books, as you expected, are in an ordinary bookcase, glass
+fronted, with an ordinary padlock on it. What fools these War Office
+experts are! There was a spare latch-key of his rooms hanging on a hook
+on the wall, for the servant, I suppose. I nicked it as I went out. I
+met the servant on the stairs&mdash;just as well, if I run across him
+to-night. There will be nothing rummy in my returning to see his master.
+I purposely dragged my coat against the passage whitewash, and after he
+offered to brush it for me I gave him half a crown. So he's all right;
+he thinks I'm a worthy gentleman who ought to be encouraged to call
+often. Is that all right?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Miller smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"You show such talents and attention to detail, my dear Lord Landon," he
+answered, "that I grieve that I am not the happy partner of such a
+colleague permanently."</p>
+
+<p>Landon looked across at him with a grin.</p>
+
+<p>"Seriously?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite seriously," replied the impassive Mr. Miller.</p>
+
+<p>Landon meditated.</p>
+
+<p>"If there is good money in it&mdash;?" he mused slowly, but his host hastened
+to interrupt him energetically.</p>
+
+<p>"Excellent money," he assured him, "and we have always a use for a
+lord."</p>
+
+<p>Landon grinned again.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps my value will increase after this evening," he suggested. "When
+do you purpose going?"</p>
+
+<p>"Would half-past nine suit you?" said Miller, affably, and Landon
+nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Charmed, I'm sure," he grinned again, and tossed off his third glass
+with unction. "Here's luck!" he cried, and Mr. Miller, who used spirits
+sparingly, and in the afternoon not at all, was forced to include
+himself in the aspiration with the good fellowship which is implied in a
+courteous bow.</p>
+
+<p>At half-past nine Aylmer's soldier servant found, as Landon had
+prophesied, nothing extraordinary in his master's guest's return. The
+glint of a second half crown shone persuasively in that guest's hand as
+he expressed his desire to write a note to await the master's coming. He
+was shown without any demur into the sitting-room, and supplied with pen
+and paper.</p>
+
+<p>But Landon's talents were not wasted on literary composition when he was
+left alone. He produced a pair of pliers and dealt very drastically with
+the padlock on the bookcase, opened the glazed doors, and ran his
+fingers down the numbers engraved upon the morocco-bound volumes. He
+selected one, opened it, flipped the pages, and finally came to a halt,
+his finger-tip poised above a plan.</p>
+
+<p>He closed the book and went to the window. He opened it noiselessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Number 34 North Front. Elevation of gun platforms with angles to east
+and south," he enunciated very quietly but very distinctly into the
+night.</p>
+
+<p>A grayness stirred in the shadow below the window. There was a whispered
+reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Right!" answered Miller's voice laconically, and Landon poised the book
+in mid-air.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you see it?" he asked, still below his breath. There was an
+affirmative grunt from below.</p>
+
+<p>The book left Landon's hand and fell through the night. There was a
+faint shock as it reached the waiting grip in the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>Landon quietly and methodically shut the window and turned to the desk.
+He leaned, pen in hand, over the note-paper.</p>
+
+<p>There was the click of a latch-key. He swung round to confront his
+cousin.</p>
+
+<p>For a second the two eyed each other in silence. Then Landon rose slowly
+to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"I came, forgetting that you were dining out," he said. "I came because
+I reasoned that by now ... you would be wanting ... to offer me an
+apology."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer looked at the desk. Landon followed the glance.</p>
+
+<p>"I was going to explain&mdash;why?" he added, pointing at the unsullied
+note-paper.</p>
+
+<p>And then Alymer's gaze, which had been concentrated on his cousin's
+face, slipped past it and found, by chance, the bookcase.</p>
+
+<p>His brows met in a puzzled frown; he made a step forward; he bent to
+examine the fractured padlock. Then he straightened himself and gave an
+exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>Landon was ready. He drew a revolver from his pocket; he held it by the
+muzzle. And the butt came down with business-like vigor on Aylmer's
+temple. He seemed to crumple up rather than fall. He slid against the
+bookcase to the floor.</p>
+
+<p>The dawn was breaking before, confusedly, achingly, consciousness
+wavered back to him again&mdash;the same dawn which saw a Spanish steamer
+drop anchor in Tangier's roads and Landon, with a satisfied smile, swing
+down the ladder into the boat which was to take him ashore.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>VILLA EULALIA</h3>
+
+
+<p>Aylmer looked up as Despard came into the room. A kit bag lay on the
+floor half full and Aylmer's man was packing it. Despard raised his
+eyebrows in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Going?" he asked quickly. "Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tangier," said Aylmer. "To-night, by the Forwood boat."</p>
+
+<p>Despard gave a little whistle.</p>
+
+<p>"And the Commission?" he objected.</p>
+
+<p>"I've had very special luck there," explained Aylmer. "Sir Arthur went
+down with influenza yesterday morning. So the Commission, instead of
+meeting this week as proposed, adjourns till the end of November."</p>
+
+<p>He leaned down, gave a searching glance into the bag, and closed it.</p>
+
+<p>"That will do, Sillery," he said to the servant. "I'll call if I want
+you."</p>
+
+<p>As the man went out Despard dropped down upon the sofa. He sat and
+looked across at his companion with a glance which blended inquiry and
+concern.</p>
+
+<p>"I've heard only rumors, so far," he remarked.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer made a little gesture towards the bookcase, which was still
+broken but empty.</p>
+
+<p>"I came back unexpectedly last night. I had been discussing a point with
+the general at dinner and ran across to find a book to prove my
+contention. I found Landon here, ransacking the bookcase. One volume is
+gone. He took me unawares and knocked me out. I didn't come to for
+several hours."</p>
+
+<p>Despard made an inarticulate exclamation of anger.</p>
+
+<p>"And he escaped, out of Gibraltar?"</p>
+
+<p>"By the <i>Miramar</i>, so the police declare. A Spanish tramp, going down
+the Moroquin coast and stopping first at Tangier."</p>
+
+<p>"He's gone to kill two birds with one stone," said Despard. "And you are
+pursuing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally," said Aylmer, in a very matter-of-fact voice.</p>
+
+<p>"And your leave home&mdash;Scotland&mdash;cub hunting?"</p>
+
+<p>"That goes, of course. Possibly, if ten weeks is insufficient, my
+secretaryship goes. Perhaps, old chap, even my commission."</p>
+
+<p>Despard got up with a startled jerk.</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" he cried fiercely. "What's that?"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer's hand made a deprecative motion.</p>
+
+<p>"My duty's plain, isn't it?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" retorted Despard. "If these old women of Commissioners have no
+more sense than to direct you to keep important books in a simple
+bookcase in your quarters&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the book?" interrupted Aylmer, placidly. "Of course, there's the
+book."</p>
+
+<p>Despard halted, hesitated, and looked at his friend with curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean the contents of it? You can't help them getting known?"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"We must recognize the fact that they are known by whoever buys them,
+or whoever hired Landon to steal them."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why worry; why pursue, why start on this wild-goose chase?" He
+pointed to the great bruise on Aylmer's forehead. "It's outrageous, with
+that on you. It's probably dangerous."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Aylmer was silent. He stood looking at Despard, and his
+eyes seemed to express a sort of speculative criticism.</p>
+
+<p>"Landon is my cousin," he said at last, as if he put the keystone to an
+argumentative arch.</p>
+
+<p>"What of it?"</p>
+
+<p>For the second time Aylmer hesitated before he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me," he said slowly, "that in this part of the world I am
+responsible for the good name which he is smirching. He has gone to
+Tangier&mdash;not only to save his skin. He has gone to commence a campaign
+of terrorization against the Van Arlens. Merely as an Aylmer I have to
+pit my hand against his, merely to clear our name and to do my duty. And
+there is more than that. Since Landon, for moral purposes, is dead, I
+consider that morally, and very possibly legally, I am the child's
+guardian. To keep my trust I have to safeguard the child from his
+father."</p>
+
+<p>Despard tapped his fingers doubtfully upon the mantelpiece.</p>
+
+<p>"And the Van Arlens?" he questioned.</p>
+
+<p>There were tones in his voice which made Aylmer pause over his
+portmanteau.</p>
+
+<p>"The Van Arlens? I am, of course, going to them direct."</p>
+
+<p>Despard hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't work with them," he said at last. "They won't accept your
+help."</p>
+
+<p>A flicker of emotion, first of pain and then of purpose, gleamed in
+Aylmer's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"But they may need it," he answered. He looked at Despard searchingly.</p>
+
+<p>"And why not?" he went on. "What have they against me except my name?"</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know what it has come to mean to them, in eight years," said
+Despard, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>And then a queer little silence fell between them, an interval which
+seemed charged with the electricity of emotion. Despard looked at
+Aylmer. His friend was staring in his direction, but with a meditative,
+impersonal gaze which seemed to glance through&mdash;not at&mdash;him. And a smile
+grew faintly about his lips, though these, indeed, were pressed firmly
+together.</p>
+
+<p>He straightened his shoulders, he sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I start handicapped," he allowed. "But I can run a waiting
+race." And then he gave an involuntary start and a quick, curious glance
+at his companion. "We aren't competitors?" he asked suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>The crimson surged up under the tan on Despard's forehead. He laughed
+harshly.</p>
+
+<p>"The race was run and I was beaten, nine years ago," he said. "There
+will be no other entry, for me." He walked up to Aylmer and laid his
+hand upon his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"God knows, old chap, I wish you luck. But you carry weight, there's no
+denying that."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer nodded again.</p>
+
+<p>"To carry weight one wants a stayer," he said. "And I can stay,
+Despard."</p>
+
+<p>The other nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said quietly. "You can stay. And as far as I know, the course
+is clear." His voice halted and stumbled queerly. "I ran straight, too,
+but I was fouled."</p>
+
+<p>And with a grip of Aylmer's hand he went out, to lay the balm of hope
+against the unhealed wound fate had dealt him, nine long years before.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>As twenty-four hours later Aylmer climbed the steps from the water's
+edge to the pierhead of Tangier, a red fez was doffed from a
+close-cropped skull and out of a little crowd of hotel touts a Moor
+saluted with a welcoming smile.</p>
+
+<p>"A pleasant surprise, Sidi," he remarked affably. "There is no hunt
+abroad to-day."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer shook his head gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Not in thy meaning, Daoud," he answered. He moved closer to him. "A
+Spanish boat&mdash;the <i>Miramar</i> came in at dawn?" he questioned.</p>
+
+<p>The Moor hesitated and then turned to shout to a companion. The man
+answered with a laconic affirmative.</p>
+
+<p>Daoud nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Sidi. She came in. As you see, she has gone again."</p>
+
+<p>"Who landed from her?"</p>
+
+<p>Again Absalaam put queries to the assembled loafers. They answered
+obscenely but with directness.</p>
+
+<p>"A man came ashore with the captain and did not return with him," said
+the Moor. "Is this, then, an affair of importance?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will give fifty dollars to him who brings me face to face with that
+man," said Aylmer, quietly. "Let your fellows know this."</p>
+
+<p>Absalaam frowned ferociously and then laughed, a queer, high-pitched
+nasal laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"My fellows!" He swept his hand towards the pier loafers witheringly.
+"Does the Sidi think that I am of this noble company of&mdash;of dogs and
+eaters of dirt?" He laughed again, cheerfully this time. "After all, I
+have given the Sidi every reason to believe it. But it is not so. My
+work in Tangier sends me strange companions, but I am not of them. And
+there is no need that these should debauch themselves with your fifty
+dollars, Sidi. I will see to this thing!"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer made a gesture of assent.</p>
+
+<p>"As you will, so that the matter is done with speed. I stay at the
+Bristol. For the moment I visit the Villa Eulalia."</p>
+
+<p>"You can spare yourself the heat and the mounting of the hill, Sidi.
+They of the villa set forth on an expedition to the lighthouse this
+morning."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer came to a halt, irresolute.</p>
+
+<p>"This is not mere talk; you know it?"</p>
+
+<p>The Moor looked at him with sombre eyes which, however, barely hid a
+twinkle.</p>
+
+<p>"The lady, the little lord, and their attendants went; this I saw
+myself. Absalaam ibn Said, their dragoman, is my cousin. I spoke with
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"The old man?"</p>
+
+<p>Daoud's shrug conveyed the fact that he was sufficiently conversant with
+the customs of Nazrani to have neglected the movements of one who could
+surely not claim the attentions which were notoriously the due of his
+daughter.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not concern myself to notice the old man, Sidi. If your business
+is with him, doubtless it is God's will that he awaits you."</p>
+
+<p>He waved towards the town with a determined and energetic sweep of the
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I go, to earn your dollars, Sidi. One hour may suffice me; perchance I
+must waste three or even four. But I shall find him, have no doubt of
+the matter. Have I your leave to depart?"</p>
+
+<p>As they passed together under the shadow of the Marsa gate, Aylmer
+nodded and the next moment passed alone into the crowd. A side alley had
+swallowed Daoud as if by magic.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer joined the main stream of traffic which breasted up past the
+Mosque and the little Sôk towards the Gate of the Great Market, and so,
+past the hovels of the desert vagrants which cluster round the walls, to
+the Marshan and the European quarter outside the town.</p>
+
+<p>A little apart from the cluster of Legations stood the Villa Eulalia,
+encircled with its tiny park. This, in its turn, was bounded by a high
+wall of plaster or dried mud. The entrance led under an archway by a
+porter's lodge.</p>
+
+<p>A Moor in a spotless bournous appeared and made a grave gesture of
+obeisance as the visitor stood in the shadow of the porch.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer presented his card.</p>
+
+<p>The man inspected it and pulled a cord. Some way off, inside the house,
+came the clang of a bell. Another man emerged, took the card which the
+porter handed him, and disappeared. All this time Aylmer still stood
+outside the gate.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps a certain irritation showed on his face, for the porter made a
+gesture of deprecation.</p>
+
+<p>"If the Sidi would sit&mdash;?" He submitted courteously, indicating his own
+chair. "I do not know the Sidi," he added, with another tiny shrug, "or
+else&mdash;" His voice died away. He let it be inferred that circumstances,
+not his own desire, stood between the visitor and instant welcome.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Strangers do not have the entrée?" he asked, as he seated himself.</p>
+
+<p>The man bowed a grave affirmative.</p>
+
+<p>"These are my orders, Sidi," he answered. "But if the Sidi comes again
+he will find that I have a good memory. I do not forget a face."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer nodded. "I hope to prove it, my friend," he said quietly, and
+then sat silent, reviewing his surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>There is probably no more beautifully situated dwelling in Africa than
+this wide one-storied house upon the knoll which dominates the Marshan
+with Tangier at its feet. Beyond the clustered houses of the town lies
+the blue of the bay. Beyond that again the gray vagueness of Gibraltar,
+Cadiz, and the cork woods of Spain. On clear days, high, white, and
+mystical looms, above all, the snow of the Sierra.</p>
+
+<p>Far to the east stands the ring of mountains which encircles Tetuan, and
+this, for many months of the year, has its own crown of white. Away to
+the west is the infinite emptiness of the Atlantic beyond Spartel, while
+southward, a barrier between the sea and the desert wastes, Sheshouan
+rears up its mighty crest. To whichever quarter the eye turns there is
+loveliness&mdash;loveliness both of color and of line. And the lucent
+clearness of the atmosphere emphasizes both. Sometimes the mist floats
+in and covers the seascape with a cloud of mystery, but it is seldom,
+save in the short time of the rains, that the landward view is anything
+but sun-swathed. And the sands which stretch between the river and the
+town walls seem to suck in his rays and render them back from their
+yellow richness when his face is obscured.</p>
+
+<p>What nature has done for the distant views artifice has graven upon the
+immediate surroundings. Pipes laid down to the little River of the Jews,
+which babbles below the knoll, bring up water to irrigate the lawns
+which surround the verandahs. Nowhere in Tangier is there such a carpet
+of living green. The creepers climb the verandah posts and trail
+unrestrained upon the roof. Great white, red, and yellow flowers swing
+from pole to pole as the sea breeze freshens; trailing tendrils of vine
+and clematis nod through the open windows and mingle with the cords of
+the string curtains. And the plash of water adds to the sense of leisure
+and repose. A little fountain plays ceaselessly from the summit of a
+massed pyramid of rocks and rambles down into the grass between
+clustered ferns. In masses of six and seven the date palms fling shade
+from trunk to trunk.</p>
+
+<p>Peace was the pervading element, Aylmer told himself, as he looked down
+the shady alleys and listened to the voice of the fountain, and yet
+peace, as facts went, was further from this abode than from the clangors
+of the market-place in the faction-riven town at their feet. This was no
+house of pleasure; it was a fortress, with the enemy ever at the gate.</p>
+
+<p>The precautions of his own entrance were sign enough, but other things
+bore witness. A score of gardeners was not necessary to tend the two
+acres of pleasaunce, elaborately planned and kept though they were.
+There was no entrance save the one; two others had been solidly walled
+in. Bars were on the windows; massive bolts upon the inner wooden gate
+beyond the iron one.</p>
+
+<p>Remembering to whom this debt of anxiety and watchfulness was due,
+Aylmer set his lips yet more grimly as he waited. Landon should pay to
+the uttermost, not only for the wrongs which he had heaped year by year
+upon his wife and her relations, but for the injury he had done to those
+of his own blood. Aylmer's eyes grew hard; his color rose angrily. He,
+John Aylmer, a reputable man, sat and waited admission to a house like a
+common mendicant, because Landon was a scoundrel. And beyond this, was
+there not more? Had he not had to endure a look of repulse, of loathing,
+from eyes&mdash;for the first time he confessed it, even to himself&mdash;which
+had become to him the very eyes of Fate. By God! Landon should pay
+bitterly for that!</p>
+
+<p>A step upon the gravel scattered his reflections. He looked up. Mr. Van
+Arlen was coming towards him, his head bent to that courteous, suavely
+interested inclination which is a relic of the old school of politeness.
+No man under sixty has had the time, or the inclination, to practise
+these old-time graces.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer rose, and held out his hand. Mr. Van Arlen, with profuse
+gesticulations, insisted on personally bringing forward a couple of low
+deck chairs into the shadow of the palms. He waved his visitor to take a
+seat.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer bowed, but preferred, he said, to stand. There was a significance
+in his tone which did not escape, was, indeed, not meant to escape, his
+companion. The old gentleman gave him a keen and somewhat disquieted
+look.</p>
+
+<p>"But I cannot sit if you do not," he protested. He gave the back of the
+chair a seductive little pat. "Let me persuade you," he pleaded
+anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Van Arlen," said Aylmer, slowly, "I am not received here as a
+friend. I prefer, therefore, to give my message standing, as a matter of
+business."</p>
+
+<p>The gray, furrowed face flushed.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear sir!" protested the old man. "My dear sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"You obviously evade my hand; you do not desire to ask me inside your
+house?" insisted Aylmer, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>The other raised a hand which shook deprecatingly. But Aylmer
+forestalled his attempt at speech.</p>
+
+<p>"You do these things, or rather you avoid doing them, without any
+personal cause of complaint against me, but because my name is what it
+is?"</p>
+
+<p>Van Arlen's hand fell to his side. The pained remonstrative look faded
+from his eyes. His lips, which had quivered, grew suddenly set and were
+firmly pressed together. He seemed to increase in stature.</p>
+
+<p>"Is not my reason good?" he cried sharply, as if some relentlessly
+passionate impulse mastered all restraint.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Aylmer, quietly, "though I grant your provocation has been
+ample. Let me tell you this. If there are any men breathing whose
+loathing of your son-in-law can equal your own, it is those who are
+tainted with his name. In the name of my kinsmen, a name all reputable
+till Landon smirched it, I tender you their sympathy and regret."</p>
+
+<p>For a long instant the gray eyes beneath the grayer eyebrows searched
+Aylmer's face. Doubt, perplexity, and then finally a thrill of obvious
+relief passed across the waxen face. Aylmer's hand was taken; he was
+gently propelled towards a chair.</p>
+
+<p>"I have suffered much; can I be forgiven?" said the old man wearily.
+"Can you make my excuses valid to yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"They were written, and the shame of our family with them, all too large
+in the press of two hemispheres," said Aylmer. "God knows I am not here
+to-day to bring anything more than such little reparation as is within
+my power."</p>
+
+<p>"Reparation?" Van Arlen's tone was more than surprised; it was startled.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I came to give you information of Landon's whereabouts. He is here in
+Tangier, Mr. Van Arlen. I came to put you on your guard, and at the same
+time to offer you my assistance."</p>
+
+<p>Quickly, accurately, and in as few words as possible he outlined the
+events of the previous evening. Silently, but with growing anxiety, Mr.
+Van Arlen heard him to the end.</p>
+
+<p>He rose, trembling a little, as Aylmer concluded.</p>
+
+<p>"You will excuse me if I leave you to&mdash;to give some orders. The one
+outstanding fact in your story for me is that Landon is here, and that
+my daughter and the boy are on this expedition. They have their usual
+attendants, but&mdash;but&mdash;" He halted, stammering. "He&mdash;he may poise his all
+on one last attempt? He may get together a following which would
+overpower them?"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer looked at him debatingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he allowed. "That is a possibility to be faced though I believe
+his resources are, or were, meagre. You will take more men and go and
+meet them?"</p>
+
+<p>The old man made a gesture of apology.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said. "And, if you will pardon my curtness, at once."</p>
+
+<p>"The sooner the better," agreed Aylmer, quietly, "as I hope to be
+allowed to accompany you?"</p>
+
+<p>Van Arlen gave a little start, one that seemed to imply a doubt or a
+question. As if he replied to it, Aylmer gave a little nod.</p>
+
+<p>"You must accept me as an ally, my dear sir," he said. "You have seen
+that I have a pressing need to meet Landon. I should like to do so in
+your company."</p>
+
+<p>The other still hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I would like to make the interview convincing&mdash;to you," said
+Aylmer. "Because I covet your friendship; because I want you and your
+family to revise their estimate of the name of Aylmer. Because," he
+paused and deliberated over his words for a moment, "because I want to
+be received by you at Villa Eulalia, inside."</p>
+
+<p>Again the gray face flushed; again the hand was raised in deprecation.
+And then the bell in the porch rang furiously, and continued to ring
+till the porter emerged frowning from his lodge.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer heard the sound of blows and his own name repeated in fierce
+interrogation. He recognized the voice. It was Daoud who was shouting
+and endeavoring to gain entrance in the face of the porter's emphatic
+protests.</p>
+
+<p>As Aylmer advanced to the bars, the tumult ceased.</p>
+
+<p>"Sidi! Sidi!" cried the Moor. "Your man left by the Larache road three
+hours back. A company of ne'er-do-wells have taken a sudden impulse to
+visit Arzeila, or so they said. He joined himself to them, wearing
+native dress, and was accepted by them without comment. Surely there is
+something of strangeness and importance in this. I have run, I have
+sweated, to let you know!"</p>
+
+<p>Van Arlen gave an exclamation of alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"It is as I thought!" he cried. "The Arzeila road? That is a blind. They
+can make a cut across towards Spartel at any moment." He shouted towards
+one of the watching attendants; his voice seemed to gain new force as he
+issued his orders alertly. He faced Aylmer again. "It is a matter of
+speed," he exclaimed. "I must hasten&mdash;at the gallop."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer gave him a protesting look.</p>
+
+<p>"Not I! We," he corrected.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the other still hesitated. Then a smile broke into being in
+his sombrely weary eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"We, then," he agreed. "Even the gentleman who has sadly impaired the
+distinction of my porter, if you can guarantee him. We may need all the
+help we can get. Certainly we! God send we may be in time!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FIRST TRICK IS LOST</h3>
+
+
+<p>The cavalcade of horsemen swept along a level plain of beach and from
+there turned aside to gain the broom-covered slope which led towards the
+cliff top. The white column of the lighthouse, which had been their
+guide heretofore, disappeared behind the shoulder of the ascent. It was
+no more than a couple of miles away. The riders spurred their horses up
+the steep, Aylmer and Van Arlen leading. The edge of their anxieties
+grew blunter as they neared their goal. They might be in time to meet
+and safeguard those they sought before they left the shelter of Spartel.</p>
+
+<p>As they topped the rise and looked across the undulating stretch of
+green which lay before them, Daoud, riding behind Aylmer, gave a
+triumphant shout.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>La bas, alkumdullah!</i>" he cried fervently. "No harm, thanks to God.
+The lady is even now coming towards us with her party unharmed."</p>
+
+<p>Their eyes followed the direction of his finger. A great sigh of relief
+broke from Mr. Van Arlen's lips.</p>
+
+<p>A party came slowly towards them, a couple of furlongs distant. Seven or
+eight were men mounted on barbs, and armed, in spite of prohibitions,
+with Remington rifles swung across their laps. In front of them, a
+couple of mules paced doggedly on, carrying two white-clad figures. At
+their bridles were <i>djelab</i>-clothed youths, whose adjurations of their
+charges were audible even at that distance, so still was the evening
+air. Two or three dogs chased each other and supposititious partridges
+from tuft to tuft.</p>
+
+<p>Van Arlen and Aylmer saw that they were seen, but not recognized. The
+muleteers halted and cried loudly to the guard. The horsemen looked up,
+whirled up their rifles with their right hands, and spurred to the
+front.</p>
+
+<p>Daoud's bull voice stormed the cliff echoes.</p>
+
+<p>"Absalaam&mdash;Absalaam ibn Said! Son of foolishness! It is I, Daoud, with
+Sid' Aylmer and thine employer!"</p>
+
+<p>The rifle muzzles were lowered; the horsemen drew aside, and the two
+white-clad figures led again. A minute later Aylmer reined in his horse,
+and raised his helmet at Miss Van Arlen's side. Daoud, with a
+self-satisfied smile, was understood to explain that owing to his
+unparalleled management the expedition had resulted in an unprecedented
+success.</p>
+
+<p>The girl's eyes were raised questioningly, first to her father's face,
+and then doubtfully, almost, indeed, unwillingly, to Aylmer's. She bowed
+to him coolly, not ungraciously, but with no effect of welcome. He sat
+silent, watching as she listened to the explanation which the elder man
+gave in a rapid undertone.</p>
+
+<p>She made no comment till he finished, but at the first mention of
+Landon's name she unconsciously, as it seemed, edged her horse in a
+direction which took her away from Aylmer and closer to her small
+nephew, who sat on his gray donkey, staring at the newcomers with the
+frank astonishment of childhood. Aylmer noticed the movement. Was it
+instinctive maternal impulse which drew her to her charge when she heard
+that danger threatened him? Or was it antipathy for himself&mdash;the
+antipathy which long prejudice had given her for all who bore her
+brother-in-law's dishonored name? The shadow of doubt clouded his eyes,
+but his lips grew hard and resolute. Despard, if he had been there,
+would have recognized the symptoms. It was with that expression that
+Aylmer had led his guns into action on Colenso's already forgotten day
+of blood.</p>
+
+<p>But as Mr. Van Arlen's narrative continued, the girl's features relaxed.
+She turned and for the second time looked at Aylmer, doubtfully, indeed,
+but with the doubt of one who reconsiders, whose verdict is shaken by
+appeal.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain Aylmer has been at considerable trouble to warn us," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said quietly. "The warning I brought you was only part of my
+obvious duty. Surely you see that?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a queer note of feeling below the restraint in his voice. She
+recognized it and interest grew in her glance. She looked at him keenly.</p>
+
+<p>"After all, you have put yourself out to assist us in what is solely our
+own hazard," she protested. But there was something in her look which
+seemed to put the emphasis of her words awry. Was she hinting that he
+might have minded his own business, or was she pricking his sense of
+honor purposely, to judge him out of his own mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought of your hazard, truly enough," he answered slowly. "I was
+thinking, perhaps more earnestly, of my own and my family's reputation.
+You forget that if you and your father have a heavy reckoning against my
+cousin, his own kinsmen, whom I represent, consider that theirs is no
+lighter."</p>
+
+<p>She considered him gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she answered quietly. "No, I did not get that point of view. I did
+not even believe it a possible one, amongst Aylmers. There I have to ask
+your forgiveness."</p>
+
+<p>There was the hint of a smile lurking in her eyes, something that hinted
+that she exaggerated in saying this and knew it. But there was perfect
+seriousness in his reply.</p>
+
+<p>"That is taken for granted. And my position in this matter is taken for
+granted, too?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him questioningly again and then at her father. The latter
+smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain Aylmer has his own grudge against this child's father. He
+offers us his co-operation."</p>
+
+<p>"And I ask for the friendly treatment of an ally," added Aylmer,
+quietly.</p>
+
+<p>Her look was still doubtful and, unconsciously, perhaps, she frowned.</p>
+
+<p>"Considering what we already owe you&mdash;" she began. He interrupted with a
+gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"You owe me nothing," he said. "If you reckon profit and loss in your
+dealings with Aylmers, you have a wide balance against you. All I want
+is your friendly tolerance, while I pay in instalments."</p>
+
+<p>She still seemed to ponder his proposal, to review it with the interest
+of a curiosity which has been imperfectly fed.</p>
+
+<p>"What is your ultimate goal, then?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated. A queer glint of passion shone in his eyes to sink into
+shadow again.</p>
+
+<p>"My goal is the trapping of Landon into an English gaol, for espionage
+and robbery. Or&mdash;" He shrugged his shoulders meaningly.</p>
+
+<p>"Or?"</p>
+
+<p>"Or his death," he said, in very distinct, level tones.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" The exclamation came from her almost unconsciously. Her face shone
+with a sudden alertness, her expression warmed, her eyes grew bright.</p>
+
+<p>"You would not hesitate&mdash;at that?" she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Van Arlen made a little inarticulate murmur of protest; his hand was
+stretched towards her with appeal.</p>
+
+<p>She disregarded it. Her eyes were fixed piercingly on Aylmer's face.</p>
+
+<p>He met her glance with matter-of-factness.</p>
+
+<p>"I should not hesitate, if need arose," he said.</p>
+
+<p>She drew a long breath. Her features relaxed.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," she said gravely. "Now I know where we stand. And
+then&mdash;that is all?"</p>
+
+<p>This time it was his eyes which held hers with insistence, almost with
+menacing, she told herself.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said quietly. "That is&mdash;not all. But that, for the present, is
+enough."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment her heart seemed to halt in its beat, the blood rushed to
+her face, the pulse of anger which leaped through her gave her a queer
+sense of choking. For she understood. Incredible, monstrous, as his
+purpose appeared in the light of her loathing of those who bore his
+name, she had not misread it. His words? They were possibly nebulous.
+But his eyes? No. No woman could misunderstand that look. Steadfast,
+patient, determined&mdash;the unswerving gaze of the pioneer who sees the
+unseen goal with the eye of faith, and sees it won.</p>
+
+<p>She wheeled her mule with a fierce drag of the rein; her spur found its
+flank and forced it forward. She felt morally stunned by this&mdash;this
+insolence; mere words could not meet it. For the moment she felt
+herself deprived of weapons by the unexpectedness of the attack.</p>
+
+<p>Her movement set the whole party in motion. Her father reined up to her
+side. She stole a half glance at his face. There was a queer, partly
+grim, partly puzzled expression on it, but she read, too, a glint of
+humor? Her exasperation rose. Her father, even? Had he gone over to the
+enemy; could she no longer reckon that his support would not crumble
+from resentment into laughter? Oh, this imperturbable Englishman should
+pay for this! If there was one shaft of gall left in her woman's armory,
+he should pay! The insolence of the man&mdash;the unparalleled insolence!</p>
+
+<p>Behind her she heard his voice, addressed to Absalaam in trivial
+inquiry. She felt an overwhelming desire to forestall the answer with
+indignant words of bitter loathing. His impassibility excited her&mdash;the
+serenity with which he passed back, as it were, to little things after
+launching such a bomb. She gave a shiver of passion, or, perhaps, fear
+had its place in her emotion. There was something relentless in his
+attitude, something uncompromising.</p>
+
+<p>Absalaam's answer was forestalled, but not by her. Little John Aylmer's
+voice rang out, shrill with the joy of discovery.</p>
+
+<p>"The brown man!" he cried rapturously. "The brown man!"</p>
+
+<p>The other John Aylmer looked up. A couple of men had come into sudden
+view round a corner of the track. A clump of Spanish broom had hidden
+their approach; they gave an exclamation of alarm as they met the
+glances of the riders not thirty yards away.</p>
+
+<p>One Aylmer recognized at once. He was the man of the pier, the would-be
+kidnapper whose purpose he himself had frustrated at the moment of
+success.</p>
+
+<p>The other man made a movement to cover his face with the hood of his
+<i>djelab</i>, but by some apparent unadroitness let it fall further back.
+And so revealed his identity.</p>
+
+<p>It was Landon&mdash;brought to a sudden halt by surprise.</p>
+
+<p>Through a pregnant instant of silence they confronted one another. Then
+Aylmer spurred forward with a shout.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't let them escape!" he roared. "A hundred dollars to the man who
+takes him!"</p>
+
+<p>The two fugitives turned and ran desperately down the path, seeking
+wildly for an opening in the surrounding jungle. Surprise and terror
+appeared to have dazed them, for they passed several avenues of escape
+heedlessly, made half-hearted attempts to turn, and still blundered on
+between the caging walls of green. Aylmer thundered behind them, drawing
+nearer with every stride. He leaned forward in the saddle; his arm
+reached out within a yard of Landon's flying draperies; he spurred
+fiercely into his horse's flanks.</p>
+
+<p>The two men leaped right and left into the green thicket as divers leap
+into the blue. And in the same instant something rose out of the
+earth&mdash;something thin, snake-like, starting suddenly into being, as it
+were, from the concealing smother of the dust into a rigid line knee
+high. Aylmer's horse stumbled, shot forward, and went down heavily. His
+rider was flung far beyond him, moved spasmodically once, and then lay
+still. The squadron of charging horsemen were trapped in their turn. Not
+one escaped. The goad of Aylmer's bribe had sent every man of them
+charging in the wake of his leadership. The taut-held rope accounted for
+them all, or for all save one. Absalaam, a consummate horseman, reined
+in on the brink of disaster, rearing his stallion high into the air.</p>
+
+<p>The road was an inferno of yelling men and blood-stained horses.</p>
+
+<p>The few Moors who were not stunned and incapacitated by their fall had
+to endure the perils of half a hundred wildly struggling hoofs. Scarcely
+six out of the score who had thundered so carelessly after their easy
+quarry fought a way for themselves out of the mêlée unharmed.</p>
+
+<p>And of those six there was not one who did not come to a sudden halt
+with uplifted fingers as they gained the open road. A revolver barrel
+was pointed at each man's breast.</p>
+
+<p>Ten or a dozen men had emerged from the thicket. They used no words;
+their fingers, significantly pressed upon the triggers, were eloquent
+enough. Only one spoke&mdash;Landon, who strolled slowly and panting a little
+into the circle which the menace of his underlings had formed.</p>
+
+<p>He halted opposite Claire Van Arlen.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh, sister-in-law!" he chuckled smilingly.</p>
+
+<p>Her face was white, but her hand, which gripped the reins, was steady.
+And her gaze burnt upon his face in loathing and contempt.</p>
+
+<p>"Rather neat?" said Landon, amiably. "I plume myself. My resources were
+limited, you see. I may congratulate myself upon having used them to the
+very best advantage."</p>
+
+<p>Still she was silent and still her eyes flung him their message of
+hate. He gave a pleasant little laugh. He made a significant jerk of the
+head in the direction of the chaos behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"And the virtuous cousin," he said. "What a fall is there, is there not?
+A hundred dollars! He actually appraised my poor liberty so high!"</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the expression in her glance changed as she turned it in
+the direction of the still struggling horses and their riders. He saw it
+and laughed again.</p>
+
+<p>"You divide your anxieties," he said. "Let me relieve you of one!"</p>
+
+<p>He stretched out his hand and laid it gently upon his son's shoulder.
+"Are you coming with your father&mdash;to ride the black horse upon the
+sands?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>The child looked at him debatingly. His face lit up at the question, and
+then shadowed again as he turned his glance upon the motionless white
+figure on the mule beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Auntie won't have it&mdash;and Selim," he deplored.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't they?" said Landon, good-humoredly. "I think they will."</p>
+
+<p>He stared up in the girl's face with insolent satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"In fact," he went on, "they've got to. Vulgarly, my boy, they may not
+like it, so they must lump it."</p>
+
+<p>He made a gesture of command.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, my son!" he said, motioning him to dismount.</p>
+
+<p>A tension broke. She lifted up her riding-whip and struck hard at him,
+struck with the concentrated strength of passion and despair. He leaped
+aside, but the end of the lash reached him and left a staring weal of
+red upon his cheek.</p>
+
+<p>He cursed aloud; he made as if he would spring at her.</p>
+
+<p>A warning cry came from behind him; half a dozen revolver shots rang out
+upon the evening air.</p>
+
+<p>Absalaam, sitting stark upon his stallion, covered by the revolvers
+which encircled him, had struck his spurs against his horse's flank. The
+fire in the animal's blood had responded in a great leap forward. Landon
+wheeled round to see, towering above him, man and horse, looming
+gigantic against the glare of the sunset. Instinctively, automatically,
+he threw up the muzzle of his own revolver, and fired full at the Moor's
+broad chest.</p>
+
+<p>The other bullets flew wide, but that one, so near was the human target,
+had no room to miss. Absalaam fell limply, heavily from the saddle, fell
+at his mistress's feet. The horse tore past a dozen restraining hands
+into liberty.</p>
+
+<p>There was shouting, confusion, the rattle of other shots. And then the
+voice of the brown <i>djelabed</i> man thundered out high above the uproar.</p>
+
+<p>"In God's name, Sidi, have haste. Four of them have fled into the
+thicket! God alone knows what help they may bring their fellows and how
+soon!"</p>
+
+<p>And Landon, who had been flung to his knees in the dust, rose swiftly,
+without another word snatched his son from the saddle, and led the way
+into the jungle.</p>
+
+<p>In five short minutes he had come, conquered, and gone. He had won every
+trick, every trick! Claire passed her hand across her brow as she stared
+at the huddle of wounded and&mdash;she shuddered in agony as the thought
+thrilled&mdash;perchance the dead! What lay within that ring of broken
+bodies&mdash;what? With white lips and fear-brimmed eyes she slipped from her
+saddle to see.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>AYLMER IS EXPLICIT</h3>
+
+
+<p>It seemed to Aylmer that the world into which he woke was one of
+stillness, of neutral tints, of intrinsic peace. There was a hint of
+sunshine diluted by the green hangings in front of the windows, but no
+more than a hint. There was a faint echo of the sound of falling water
+floating in with the light, but merely an echo. There was, in fact, but
+the slightest suggestion of life in his surroundings, and that came from
+the silently regular rise and fall of the bosom of the sleeping man who
+sat at his bedside. Aylmer blinked and stared in mild surprise, for the
+man was Daoud.</p>
+
+<p>He moved restlessly under the sheets. Where was he? Into what unsought
+refuge had Fate flung him now?</p>
+
+<p>His movement, slight as it was, aroused the Moor. With a little
+self-reproachful exclamation he stood up and leaned over the bed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Sidi!" he cried, "it rejoices my heart to read the light of
+understanding in your eyes."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer blinked again bewilderedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Where am I and what do you here?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"You are in Villa Eulalia, Sidi, and where should I be but in attendance
+on my lord?"</p>
+
+<p>Astonishment lifted Aylmer into a weak attempt to rise. The Moor put a
+hand upon his shoulder and firmly pressed him back.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, Sidi," he said respectfully. "The German doctor lord expressly
+forbade that you should raise your head from the pillow till he had seen
+you again."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer began to feel as if his wits as well as his body had been
+bludgeoned. Circumstances seemed to have leaped freakishly beyond his
+recollection.</p>
+
+<p>"I was brought here when?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yesterday, Sidi. Your brain was sorely smitten inside your skull, or so
+I understood the man of medicines. For fifteen hours you have lain as
+one feigning death, though breathing. Now you have come into the right
+of your senses again. This the medicine man also prophesied."</p>
+
+<p>The puzzled frown stayed on Aylmer's brow.</p>
+
+<p>"And you?" he demanded. "And you?"</p>
+
+<p>The Moor answered with a demure shrug of the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Your wounded brain has perchance forgotten, Sidi, that I entered your
+benign service on the morning of the day which saw you defeated by the
+treachery of that one whom we sought, you and I. My service has been
+constant ever since."</p>
+
+<p>He met his victim's increasing frown with complacent assurance as he
+spoke. Surely everything, he seemed to imply, was in order. And as the
+situation became clear to Aylmer's growing intelligence, the frown
+became an exasperated smile.</p>
+
+<p>"You have used my helplessness to impose yourself into this house as my
+body-servant," said Aylmer. "Oh, Daoud, you are of a deceitfulness
+beyond my unpractised powers of speech."</p>
+
+<p>"Speech beyond the mere limits of necessity was strongly discountenanced
+by the German doctor lord," said Daoud, hastily. "Has the Sidi any
+further desires?"</p>
+
+<p>"None, save for information. Speak thou! Give me the plain tale of all
+happenings since I fell into that trap upon the road. The man we
+sought&mdash;did he escape?"</p>
+
+<p>The Moor nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"He escaped victoriously, with all his following. He took also the
+child, the Sidi Jan, who, so they tell me, is the son of his house. They
+took themselves unmolested into the tangle of the broom, leaving of our
+company one dead&mdash;from the kick of a horse, Sidi&mdash;half a dozen
+senseless, yourself among them, Absalaam grievously wounded in the
+bosom, though like to recover, and all, save four or five, with bruises,
+broken limbs, or, at least, frayed and bleeding skin. So they fled, but
+Ali, of the Walad Said, who had been flung away from the hardness of the
+open track into the heart of the thicket, had taken no harm and followed
+them to the caves."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer gave a start.</p>
+
+<p>"The caves?" he muttered weakly. "The caves?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Sidi knows them well. The caves of Hercules beyond Spartel, where
+the millstone carvers ply their toil and where the Sidi and other
+Nazrani ride forth to eat and drink upon occasion when they entertain
+their friends."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer nodded. The caves of Hercules are the resort of many a picnic
+party from Tangier.</p>
+
+<p>"Leaving them there, he hastened back with news. The Sidi Van Arlen,
+lord of this house, was by then recovered of the stunning which he, too,
+had suffered, and weak though he was immediately led forth another
+company to search the caves. And this they did unsuccessfully, Sidi,
+learning from one of the millstone workers, who had doubted of the
+integrity of these sons of dirt before they saw him, and who had
+therefore hidden himself and watched them unseen, that after a rest of
+three or four hours the men, taking with them the child, had passed down
+to the shore, had there awaited and been taken off by a boat which
+delivered them, so he conceived, to a lateen which he could descry in
+the moonlight about three furlongs out. And in that ship they have gone
+we know not whither."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer's fingers clenched and unclenched upon the coverlet. How
+thoroughly, how absolutely, they had been bested! But the account was
+rolling up. Ultimate defeat? His mind never even considered it. He
+merely put another item in the mental ledger from which Landon's account
+would one day be presented, and paid, in full.</p>
+
+<p>"Let not the Sidi imagine that we have sat inactive while these sons of
+unchaste mothers triumph. I myself snatched a hasty hour from your
+bedside to enter the town and set certain ones agog for news. The Sidi
+Van Arlen hath telegraphed to Spain; every Guardia Civile along the
+coast has knowledge of how a reward of a thousand pesetas may be gained.
+By favor of the captain of the French warship all other ships of the
+French marine within three hundred miles have been warned to challenge
+unvouched-for boats. How this is done I am unable to say, but so it is.
+Watch upon the seas is therefore being kept. Now steam is being raised
+upon the white yacht in the bay, that when news comes it may be followed
+without delay. Lastly, a special mission has been sent by favor of the
+Bashaw from town to town along the coast as far as Dar-el-Baida. Thus
+have we set a wide net. Yet it has holes in it, Sidi, and holes are what
+these jackals are ever quick to seek."</p>
+
+<p>With a sudden movement, Aylmer sat up. A frown and a gesture of command
+warded back Daoud's outstretched hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Art thou my servant?" he cried, and the Moor spread out his palms in
+alert assent.</p>
+
+<p>"Of a surety, Sidi, but the dispenser of medicines&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What have I to do with medicines&mdash;I, a strong man with no more than a
+bruised skull? Give me my clothes!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Sidi&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My clothes, or return instantly to the gutter from which my favor
+yesterday lifted you!"</p>
+
+<p>The Moor gave a fatalistic shrug.</p>
+
+<p>"If Allah has written it that you are to die by the weapon of thine own
+obstinacy, oh, Sidi, He has written it. This is thy shirt."</p>
+
+<p>With an accustomedness which spoke of previous practice, he presided
+over his master's toilet. He fetched water, honed a razor, shaved Aylmer
+with deftness and despatch, produced trousers from a press, handed coat
+and waistcoat brushed and folded to the last pinnacle of neatness. It
+was as he laced the boots that he looked up inquiringly and put a
+question which had been obviously hanging upon his lips since the moment
+of his master's rising.</p>
+
+<p>"And what, oh, Sidi, are your intentions now?"</p>
+
+<p>"First, to see my host. Afterwards," he made a vague gesture,
+"afterwards, my friend, I shall act as is directed by your perpetual
+gossip&mdash;Fate!"</p>
+
+<p>"May Allah direct our councils!" aspired Daoud, piously. "Lean upon me,
+Sidi! There is no need to overtax thy returning strength!"</p>
+
+<p>But Aylmer leaned upon nothing. Slowly, but walking erect, he paced
+across the wide entrance hall, and then halted, indeterminate.</p>
+
+<p>The hangings across a door opposite him were drawn aside. Claire Van
+Arlen stood confronting him, her lips parted in amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"You!" she protested breathlessly. "You!"</p>
+
+<p>He answered with a little bow.</p>
+
+<p>"Myself," he said quietly. "I must present my excuses for an ...
+intrusion which it was not within my power to prevent."</p>
+
+<p>She held up her hand in protest.</p>
+
+<p>"When you were wounded in our service!" she cried. "When you were doing
+your best for us!"</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said. "I am working, I shall go on working, for myself. I
+should like that to be clear."</p>
+
+<p>She half turned away with a little startled motion and the ghost of a
+frown. Words trembled on her lips and were thrust back. She understood,
+and would have sought, at any other time, this opportunity to make
+things clear indeed, but ... the man was wounded ... serving her and
+hers. No, for the moment the opportunity must go by.</p>
+
+<p>She held up the cord hangings and pointed into the room behind her.</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate you must not stand, and I am extremely culpable to permit
+your mutiny against your doctor's orders. Why have you got up?"</p>
+
+<p>He strode slowly after her into the shadowed room. He sat down upon the
+wicker chair which she indicated. His eyes sought hers, keenly and very
+directly.</p>
+
+<p>"You have no news?" he asked. "Nothing out of Spain, or from the coast?"</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes clouded.</p>
+
+<p>"None, or next to none. The signal station at Spartel saw a lateen
+working her sweeps in the distance at dawn. There was a glassy calm
+inshore, but occasional and uncertain breezes out of the shelter of the
+land. She was making as if for Cadiz, but half an hour later, just as
+the haze covered her, a strong wind rose from the northwest and it is
+doubtful if she could have beaten up against it. In which case she
+probably stood down the coast."</p>
+
+<p>Her voice was apathetic and a little weary. Her glance avoided his.</p>
+
+<p>He gave a little nod as she finished.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said. "He has taken the first trick&mdash;Landon. And I have been
+no help to you but a hindrance. It was I who helped him last night&mdash;I,
+with my impulsiveness. There you have a right ... to suspect me."</p>
+
+<p>She made a quick, restless movement.</p>
+
+<p>"Suspect you!" she cried. "You!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said slowly. "That day in the town, and on the pier, at the
+Tent Club meeting, even&mdash;was not that in your mind?"</p>
+
+<p>His voice was not reproachful, merely inquiring.</p>
+
+<p>She flushed.</p>
+
+<p>"The first time I suspected every one," she answered. "The second time I
+discovered, suddenly and unexpectedly, your name."</p>
+
+<p>He nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"And now?" he questioned. "And now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now?" she repeated. "Have you not given me my proofs?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have I?" His voice was eager. "I can reckon that barrier down then? The
+taint of the name is cleared away? I start with no handicap of
+prejudice?"</p>
+
+<p>Again the form of words half bewildered, half exasperated her. Start?
+Start whither, in what race, to what goal? And were there barriers to be
+won, too? Between him and&mdash;what?</p>
+
+<p>Her instinct gave her the answer as it had done the day before. But she
+shrank from the acknowledgment, even to herself. The thought was too
+monstrous. An Aylmer and&mdash;and that! The blood rushed to her forehead on
+the tide of her resentment. And then as suddenly ebbed. After all, was
+it not the name alone which sent that surging throb of repulsion through
+her veins? Supposing she had met this man, in ignorance. She started
+again. Had she not so met him, at first? She cudgelled her brains in
+reflection. How did she regard him that morning at the Tent Club, before
+she knew? Had he not seemed a personable, even a gallant and courageous
+soldier, worthy of a woman's regard? She looked at him suddenly,
+curiously, with a sort of speculation in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>And he met the glance quietly, watchfully, and&mdash;so she told herself with
+a recurrent thrill of exasperation&mdash;relentlessly as well. It was as if
+he was forcing her to be won from prejudice to impartiality. As if he
+willed her into just thinking against herself. A tiny spasm of fear
+pulsed through her. In a clash of purpose who would win, she or this
+man?</p>
+
+<p>She made him a gesture which had about it the sense of appeal.</p>
+
+<p>"One cannot dismiss prejudices; one can fight them," she faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!"</p>
+
+<p>He sighed, not with weariness, but with a sort of patience, with
+restraint. "I think perhaps women do not accept mere justice as a plea
+so easily as men," he debated. "So I must not presume on that footing. I
+have still to win my way from ... dislike?"</p>
+
+<p>"No!" she cried sharply. "No! I can be just to what you have done. What
+you are&mdash;that I have yet to learn, have I not?"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled a little bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"I am an Aylmer. That is the lesson you have got by heart. I ask you to
+begin by unlearning."</p>
+
+<p>She caught her breath a little quickly. Then she gave a decided little
+nod.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," she answered. "I&mdash;I will forget everything but the fact
+that you saved the boy once and that you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Will do it again," said Aylmer. "That is a bargain?"</p>
+
+<p>Again she hesitated over the form of words. A bargain? What was her side
+of the contract. If he fulfilled the purpose of which he spoke so
+confidently, what did it mean, from her point of view? She avoided the
+issue.</p>
+
+<p>"You will find the child, you will bring him back?" she wondered.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course!" He sat very erect in his chair. He smiled confidently. "In
+a fight between a rogue and honest men, the honest men win ultimately,
+and always. The green bay tree of the unrighteous grows with luxuriance
+but withers in time inevitably. I shall follow him till I win."</p>
+
+<p>"And your career?" she asked incredulously. "Your profession?"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"That will be my career&mdash;to defeat Landon. Is it a reputable one for a
+gentleman?"</p>
+
+<p>She made a motion of protest.</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;but that is self-sacrifice, one which we couldn't accept. Why
+should you do this for us?"</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head again.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said. "I must repeat it, I work for myself. I seek my own
+interest, and that, in the first place, is to make you just. I see but
+the one way to do it. I have to convince you that I am in earnest, have
+I not?"</p>
+
+<p>Again that baffling allusion. In earnest in what? In defeating Landon,
+in attempting the rescue of the child? Surely he had proved that
+already. And yet how could she counter a point which she could not help
+allowing she now understood; how could she do it without the loss of
+dignity implied in an explanation? But it was grotesque. He had known
+her a bare week. He had met her on four occasions.</p>
+
+<p>She looked up, met his eyes, and dropped her own. A tiny sense of panic
+overtook her. He sat there, indomitable. Suppose&mdash;suppose he ultimately
+made his purpose good. She made herself look at him again. He had, at
+any rate, good looks to recommend him. And courage and the respect of
+his fellows. But&mdash;again a wave of exasperation flowed over her mind. Oh,
+it was outrageous, unthinkable. An Aylmer&mdash;another Aylmer. Unconsciously
+her lips curved in a half sarcastic smile. Why, the very newspapers of
+the world would pile headline upon headline over such a fiasco. She
+stiffened with resentment, with a sense of being played with. Her voice
+was chill with a note of dignity outraged.</p>
+
+<p>"I think the fact of your proposing to devote time and strength to the
+pursuit of&mdash;of your cousin is a very convincing one, Captain Aylmer,"
+she answered. "The point is that we have no right to accept so much from
+you."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled joyously.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall always want to be giving, to you. Always, always. Please
+understand that. My service is to you, and so to myself. Try to think of
+me in that light, patiently."</p>
+
+<p>And then a sort of desperation seized her. She probed her mind for a
+form of words which should give him no further loophole to persist in
+his veiled menaces, for she could call them no less, one that should
+seize a meaning out of his allusions and crush it with a directness
+which could not be misunderstood. Her eyes grew hard; she rose to her
+feet.</p>
+
+<p>A step sounded in the hall, and the hangings were pushed aside. Her
+father stood before them.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at Aylmer with amazed reproach. His face, already haggard with
+anxiety, took on new lines of concern.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear sir!" he protested. "My dear sir!"</p>
+
+<p>And Aylmer could not resist a smile. It was the form of protest which he
+had used at their former meeting to veil&mdash;what? Antipathy? And now? The
+words were full of genuine concern. He read no longer dislike in Mr. Van
+Arlen's glance. The elder man's eyes had softened as they reached his.</p>
+
+<p>He warded off further reproaches with a question.</p>
+
+<p>"The news?" he cried eagerly. "The news is what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good, in so far that we can gauge the direction of their flight. They
+have been seen passing Arzeila; the morning's gale has prevented their
+attempt to reach any port of Spain."</p>
+
+<p>"And so&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"And so we start in pursuit with my yacht, within the hour."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer stood up.</p>
+
+<p>"We?" he repeated. "We being&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>Van Arlen looked mildly astonished.</p>
+
+<p>"My daughter and I."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer held out his hand with a pleading gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't afford to despise my help," he said. "You must take me, too."</p>
+
+<p>Van Arlen looked at Aylmer and then, questioningly, towards his
+daughter. She met his glance. Here at last was the opportunity to make
+things plain with a vengeance. They had but politely to decline.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer's voice forestalled her.</p>
+
+<p>"To be impartial, that was your promise," he said. "We had not got far,
+but at least as far as that."</p>
+
+<p>In spite of herself she turned and faced him. He met her glance
+steadily, confidently, expectant.</p>
+
+<p>She gave a queer, half-exasperated little laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"I think Captain Aylmer is a man who is easily refused nothing," she
+said, and passed quietly out of the room.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>BY FAVOR OF THE FOG</h3>
+
+
+<p>"I do not like this!" piped a small and dejected voice. "I came to ride
+a black horse, not to be bumped in this vessel forgotten of God!"</p>
+
+<p>In English these words would have sounded strangely from the lips of a
+child of six, but little John Aylmer was fluent in the Arab jargon of
+his grandfather's native household.</p>
+
+<p>He was sitting disconsolate in the cockpit of the lateen <i>Esmeralda</i>.
+His company was Señor Emilio Albaceda, mariner and practical exponent of
+the tenets of an uncompromising Free Trade. From the uncovered hatch
+came the sound of wind whistling in the cordage and the swish and thud
+of the combers breaking past. Upon one of the narrow bunks which flanked
+the tiny cabin lay Landon, fast asleep. A guttering and extremely
+odoriferous lamp of vegetable oil was the sole illuminant. The prospects
+of comfort and entertainment in such surroundings were not those likely
+to appeal to a child accustomed to luxury and constant attention.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Pazienza!</i>" grunted the skipper, good-humoredly. "Black horses are not
+found upon the sea, though a friend of mine who prefers the running of
+contraband to the priesthood for which his parents destined him, read me
+once verses from a journal&mdash;true poetry in praise of a boot polish the
+name of which does not stay by me&mdash;where the waves of the Atlantic were
+likened unto stallions white-maned. I confess I thought the notion
+original."</p>
+
+<p>The child stared at him meditatively.</p>
+
+<p>"If horses are not to be found upon the sea and we seek horses, why do
+not we forsake the sea for the land?" There was a note of anticipation
+in the query which seemed to find this argument conclusive.</p>
+
+<p>The smuggler grinned.</p>
+
+<p>"Excellently argued, son of much intelligence," he answered. "Land is
+what we shall seek when this gale breathed from Jehannum permits us to
+do so in safety. For the moment we drive before it, there being no
+harbors on this coast within a thousand miles."</p>
+
+<p>The child moved restlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Where then can we land?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Where God and His Mother and the Holy Saints permit," said Señor
+Albaceda, suddenly reverting to <i>lingua franca</i> to clothe a piety of
+sentiment which the Moslem religion ignores. The One Allah's plans,
+being laid from the foundation of the world, are not susceptible to the
+influences of human appeal.</p>
+
+<p>Little John made a grimace of hearty discontent and looked doubtfully at
+the sleeping form of his father. But for the moment distraction came
+from another quarter.</p>
+
+<p>Two brown legs appeared in the opening of the hatch. As their owner
+lowered himself into the cabin, he disclosed the features of the man of
+the brown <i>djelab</i>&mdash;he who on Tangier pier had been sponsor for those
+fiery but phantom steeds which Fate had not allowed to materialize. The
+child received him with a shrill little shout of welcome.</p>
+
+<p>"Muhammed!" he cried gladly. "Muhammed!"</p>
+
+<p>The Moor placed his lean finger upon the yellow curls in a light caress,
+but his look was towards the berth where Landon could be seen stirring,
+aroused by his son's acclamation.</p>
+
+<p>He slipped into a sitting posture in front of the tiny table and leaned
+upon it, his chin supported by his elbows, a look of expectancy tinged
+by humor in his eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my friends," he queried amiably, "our news is, what?"</p>
+
+<p>The Moor gave a pessimistic shrug of the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Bad, Sidi," he said tersely. "We continue to drive westwards as
+before."</p>
+
+<p>Landon shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall not see Cadiz to-morrow nor the day after," he said. "Well,
+the future is spacious. We have infinite leisure before us in which to
+beat back."</p>
+
+<p>The captain grunted.</p>
+
+<p>"Leisure we have in abundance, but not food nor yet water. We must put
+in somewhere before we attempt a feat which will take, at the best,
+three days and, if Chance so decides, perhaps a fortnight."</p>
+
+<p>Landon's face was clouded with a sudden scowl.</p>
+
+<p>"Food and water! Why have you not these in sufficiency? Your terms are
+extortionate enough as it is without the makeweight of starvation!"</p>
+
+<p>"My terms," said Señor Albaceda, gruffly, "were all too cheap; what I
+learned in Tangier after I had come to an agreement with you was proof
+to me of that. But I am a man of honor; I keep bargains duly made. I
+contracted to set you ashore in Cadiz harbor&mdash;with a favorable wind a
+one night's work. I did not contract to feed three extra mouths through
+a voyage of weeks. When the wind moderates, I make for the nearest
+market, and you will buy your own provisions for our return. That is
+well understood."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean to land on the African coast, not the European?" cried Landon.</p>
+
+<p>"Where else?" said the skipper, drily. "Do you expect me to carry you on
+to the Azores?"</p>
+
+<p>Landon looked questioningly at Muhammed. The Moor made a gesture of
+resignation.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Mektub</i>, it is written!" he answered fatalistically. "Azemmour,
+perchance, or Mazagan."</p>
+
+<p>"And opposite each we shall find a French cruiser anchored," growled
+Landon, "with launches fussing about, and every craft which enters under
+suspicion of smuggling guns for the Chawia. And ten to one warning about
+us from Tangier sent down the coast."</p>
+
+<p>"That would be a matter of time," said the Moor. "We have driven faster
+than horsemen could ride!"</p>
+
+<p>"Horsemen!" Landon smote the table in his irritation. "These ships of
+war have apparatus by which they can communicate as if a cable linked
+them. If my father-in-law gets the right side of the commandant of the
+Tangier guardship&mdash;" He broke off with another shrug. "Well, to each day
+its appointed sorrow. The gale has not blown itself out yet."</p>
+
+<p>"The event is with Allah!" said the Moor, gravely. He thrust his head up
+through the hatch and shouted to the steersman. A moment later he
+dropped back into the shelter of the cabin again.</p>
+
+<p>"Your man Ibrahim is of opinion that the wind shows signs of abating. We
+passed Larache two hours back. The scud hides the shore, but he judges
+that we are not far from Sallee. If the surf permits, we may get
+anchorage and make a landing at Azemmour. If not, we must dare
+Casablanca or continue to Mazagan."</p>
+
+<p>Señor Albaceda grunted pessimistically and climbed lumberingly on deck.
+Landon threw himself back on the berth again. The Moor looked down at
+the child with a whimsical expression of pity which changed to a
+benignant smile as the object of it raised his eyes to his.</p>
+
+<p>"The Sidi Jan has not heard the marvellous tale of the Bashaw of Tripoli
+and the Afreets of El Mut?" he submitted. "If it is the Sidi's will, his
+servant will now take the opportunity of relating it to him?"</p>
+
+<p>Little John Aylmer answered with an ecstatic chuckle of delight, and
+wriggled hurriedly into the encirclement of his friend's arm. Thus
+supported, he was able to defy the unsettling influence of the waves and
+give the whole of his attention to the taxing of the Moor's memory or,
+when this occasionally failed, his very competent imagination. The hours
+of the afternoon were passed agreeably; the difficulties of making a
+meal without the ordinary appliances of civilization provided a certain
+amount of diversion when night fell, and afterwards sleep was paramount.
+When the child woke he found the boat running slowly upon an even keel,
+and scrambling on deck was met by the view of a glassy swell surrounding
+her, but only visible to the extent of the few square yards which were
+enclosed in a veil of fog.</p>
+
+<p>The skipper was at the wheel, and Ibrahim, the deck hand, and Muhammed
+were seated side by side in the bows. They did not peer into the fog&mdash;a
+hopeless task. They sat in a listening attitude, exchanging a brief word
+now and again.</p>
+
+<p>"It is certainly the drumming of a ship's screw," decided the sailor,
+after a moment's silence. "It is going at half speed, behind us."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us hope that Allah has not predestined us to be cut in twain," said
+his companion. "But from port, and very regularly, I hear the beat of
+breakers. The swell is rolling against a cliff."</p>
+
+<p>"A shore, not a cliff," corrected the other. "If my dead reckoning is
+right within a score of miles, we are opposite a beach of sand."</p>
+
+<p>Muhammed shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, listen to that thud. The crest of the comber meets something flat.
+It does not roll, in slowly dying foam, upon a strand."</p>
+
+<p>Ibrahim shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"In a fog we be all blind men," he said pessimistically. "Let us wait
+for the fulfilment of Allah's plan."</p>
+
+<p>They glanced questioningly upwards. As is common in these west coast
+fogs, the blanket of vapor was thin. Now and again a faint hint of blue
+above their heads seemed to presage a lifting of the mist; occasionally,
+indeed, the sun was to be seen vaguely as a round yellow ball of light,
+streaked by the slowly drifting scud. But the gray walls on each side of
+them remained unbroken. At the same time the beat of the breakers was
+perceptibly near.</p>
+
+<p>Señor Albaceda lifted his head from the hatch and invited the
+maledictions of innumerable Holy Men upon the weather. He was understood
+to confess that he did not undertake to gauge their position within a
+hundred miles.</p>
+
+<p>"If Allah's mercy would send us an offshore wind!" aspired the pious
+Ibrahim, and lo! with the word came its sudden fulfilment. The fog was
+rent by a gust, to disclose, not a couple of cable lengths distant, what
+appeared to be a smooth and painted crag of gray.</p>
+
+<p>The two Moors addressed fervent appeals to the One God. The Spaniard,
+impartially apostrophizing the tormented of Purgatory and the
+celestially blessed to hasten to his assistance, delivered himself of
+the opinion that Fate had closed her iron hand upon them. Where else
+could they be than within a mile of the sea bastions of Casablanca?</p>
+
+<p>That, did they observe, was a cruiser&mdash;nay, possibly a battleship by
+whose watch they had been observed without a shadow of a doubt. As the
+fog closed in again, he descended to the cabin where he could be heard
+loudly bewailing the situation to his passenger, whom he appeared to
+hold responsible for this and for a fairly extensive list of other
+inconveniences. The captain of the lateen <i>Esmeralda</i> had obviously been
+warding off the chill influences of the fog by a liberal dose of
+<i>aguardiente</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Landon lifted himself quickly to the deck. The mist was perceptibly
+lighter by now. A beam of sunlight pierced it from above and lit the
+<i>Esmeralda's</i> deck. The gray wall was still unbroken landward, but
+seaward it thinned, lifted, rolled this way and that, and finally
+disclosed a shining plain of blue. The central object in this, a couple
+of miles away, was a white, gleaming yacht.</p>
+
+<p>Landon swore.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>The Morning Star</i>&mdash;Van Arlen's boat, by God!" he cried. He made the
+helmsman a furious gesture. "Into the fog again!" he shouted. "Stick her
+nose into it, get out of this!"</p>
+
+<p>"To beat out her timbers upon the harbor reef, or be swamped beneath the
+bows of a warship!" screamed the skipper from the hatch. "Never! Keep
+her in the light, son of accursed mothers! Do passengers who have been
+born of leprous parents give orders aboard this vessel, or I, Concepcion
+Albaceda, to whom the law rightly adjudges powers of life and death?"</p>
+
+<p>He came lurching heavily aft, waving a case bottle by the neck to give
+emphasis to his commands. The bewildered Ibrahim stared at him owlishly.</p>
+
+<p>The next moment he gave a cry of alarm. Landon had tripped the captain's
+unsteady feet, and, aided by Muhammed, had taken him forward and flung
+him into the cockpit. They closed the hatch, secured it, and came aft
+again. Imperiously Landon repeated his order.</p>
+
+<p>The unfortunate sailor still hesitated. His compatriot took him firmly
+by the nape of the neck.</p>
+
+<p>"Into the fog, child of indescribable unfaithfulness," he commanded, "or
+become immediately bait for sharks! Choose!"</p>
+
+<p>The bewildered Ibrahim brought round the tiller with a jerk. Like a
+rabbit seeking its burrow, the lateen dived fogwards.</p>
+
+<p>As the gray wall surged up to them again, they turned and stared
+seaward. Landon cursed loudly. The yacht was turning, too, straight
+towards them. At a word from his master, Muhammed got out the great
+sweeps and invited Ibrahim imperiously to join him in working them.
+Landon took the helm.</p>
+
+<p>Two minutes later there was a crashing sound forward and the bowsprit
+splintered with a shock which made the little vessel shiver throughout
+its length. A muffled wail of wrath and despair followed from the depths
+of the cockpit.</p>
+
+<p>The wall of gray was towering above them. Over the bulwarks of the R.
+F. Cruiser <i>Diomède</i> a lieutenant looked down and anathematized them
+with a versatility only acquired by a true son of the sea. Landon bowed,
+smiled, and in perfect French, asked the liberty of being permitted to
+come aboard.</p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant, surprised beyond measure to hear the accents of the
+Faubourg from the decks of such an unpromising craft, hastened to forget
+the collision between the <i>Esmeralda's</i> bowsprit and the <i>Diomède's</i>
+paint, and directed his petitioner to find the companion ladder. A
+minute's groping in the fog, and Landon stood upon the cruiser's deck.</p>
+
+<p>He bowed elaborately. The lieutenant returned the bow and motioned him
+towards the quarter-deck. The captain came forward to receive him,
+smiling amiably.</p>
+
+<p>"I must be perfectly frank with you, Monsieur le Commandant," said
+Landon, returning the smile. "I come to beg assistance. My yacht is in
+harbor here, as you are possibly aware. No? The fog has hidden us; we
+came in last night. With my little son, I went ashore early this morning
+to leave a card on General d'Amade, to whom I have an introduction. I
+missed my own boat at the landing-place and was foolish enough to be
+persuaded to embark with these imbeciles below, of whom one is drunk and
+the other witless. I have already had an hour of monotonous adventure in
+the gloom; I am a little tired of being very reasonably cursed by master
+mariners whose vessels we have been ambitious enough to ram. It struck
+me that perchance you would be sending a boat ashore within the course
+of an hour or so, and might permit me to wait on deck and be a passenger
+in it. If so, my gratitude would be beyond words. It is not only for
+myself. My little son is delicate; I do not wish to expose him longer
+than is necessary to the chill of these vile vapors."</p>
+
+<p>Commandant Rattier smiled again, expressed his pleasure in being able to
+offer assistance to any Englishman&mdash;he himself was united to that nation
+by ties of blood. He would order away his launch immediately. In the
+meantime <i>une limonade Ecossaise</i> would combat the effect of chill and
+mist. Monsieur would descend to the cabin, would accept some small
+refreshment?</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur overflowed with thanks. He would dismiss the villains who had
+led him into such a coil, and then hold himself at M. le Commandant's
+service.</p>
+
+<p>He leaned over and gave his orders. Muhammed turned to Ibrahim.</p>
+
+<p>"Remove yourself and your master, oh, son of dirt, from these
+surroundings with the utmost speed, or I have the promise of the captain
+of this warship that he will send you in chains ashore to answer for
+your crime in wilfully colliding with his vessel. Your bowsprit? What
+have I to do with the results of your own vile seamanship? Have haste or
+Allah alone knows what will betide from the mouth of one of these guns."</p>
+
+<p>He gathered the child up into his arms and stalked with dignity up the
+companion.</p>
+
+<p>Ten minutes later a launch fussed away from the side of the <i>Diomède</i>.
+The commandant waved his handkerchief gaily in farewell to his small
+guest, who, from the encirclement of his father's arm, waved as gaily
+back. Half a hundred <i>matelots</i> grinned affably at him as they paused in
+their toil at cabin lights and brass-work. Landon saluted punctiliously
+and Muhammed's brown eyes expressed a grave approval of his
+entertainment. The launch's prow was thrust into the gloom.</p>
+
+<p>Another gust sang lazily from the shore and the desert and shivered the
+fog. The patches of blue joined, grew wider, opened a triumphal arch for
+the descending sunbeams' entrance. A little more than a mile away the
+walls of the sea bastions shone white. The launch's speed increased.</p>
+
+<p>Before they reached the quayside the last wisp of vapor had disappeared.
+Land and sea were swathed in sun. Landon gave a little cackle of
+amusement and pointed behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"My yacht!" he cried gaily. "My over-anxious master has weighed anchor
+in pursuit of me. Word must have reached him of my having allowed myself
+to be persuaded into that vile lateen."</p>
+
+<p>The sub-lieutenant in charge swerved the tiller.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me take you straight to her," he said. "Let me signal her!"</p>
+
+<p>Landon appeared to consider.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, a thousand times," he said, "but a small matter of victualling
+which I promised my steward to deal with has just recurred to my mind. I
+will see to it and then signal for my own boat. After all, too, I might
+see a little of the town, now we have the sunshine to illuminate it. A
+couple of hours ago it was London in November, with a few additional
+smells!"</p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant laughed and turned the prow towards the shore again. He
+cast another look over his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it possible that your master has information of, or suspects, that
+very lateen? It appears to me that he is chasing it!"</p>
+
+<p>Landon faced seaward and observed the yacht keenly.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed with great enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>"He is a character, that skipper of mine," he said. "He is as likely as
+not to sink the unfortunate boat if he does not find me on board or get
+a reasonable account of me. I shall have to smooth matters down with a
+dollar or two."</p>
+
+<p>A minute later the launch slowed up against the little quay. The three
+passengers stepped ashore, Landon full of compliments and thanks. Still
+waving adieu, he, Muhammed, and the child paced contentedly off into the
+town. The lieutenant turned seaward again.</p>
+
+<p>A slightly bewildered frown clouded his face as he approached the
+<i>Diomède</i>. The yacht had anchored with the lateen alongside her, and a
+boat was pulling from her towards the warship. The lieutenant considered
+that for yachtsmen he had never seen a boat's crew pull faster.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>RATTIER LOSES HIS CALM</h3>
+
+
+<p>Major D'Hubert, Provost Marshal of the French forces occupying
+Casablanca, grinned widely.</p>
+
+<p>"So you suffered him to escape?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>Commandant Rattier drummed fiercely on the office table.</p>
+
+<p>"Suffered?" he roared. "I entertained him&mdash;the <i>escroc</i>! I nourished
+him; I sent him ashore!"</p>
+
+<p>The soldier smiled and looked at Rattier's companion&mdash;Aylmer.</p>
+
+<p>"What open-hearted ingenuousness!" he chuckled. "You and I now, my
+Captain! When one has been officer of the day a few thousand times, or
+sat upon a few hundred courts-martial, or acted as <i>maître de logis</i>,
+one learns to sift a story then. And this one had its weak points, even
+for a sailor. Would any one not mentally deranged hire a lateen to take
+him aboard his own yacht? No, I should have required something better
+imagined than that&mdash;I."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"The man can make himself of an engaging personality, Major. Our friend
+acted according to the impulses of his generous soul. But the point is
+that our man is hidden in the town. We come to you for expert knowledge.
+Who would be likely to shelter him, and where? You will pardon our
+insistence and intrusion, but our need is very pressing. It is the
+child who is our concern, the child."</p>
+
+<p>D'Hubert made a gesture of assent.</p>
+
+<p>"Apart from my sincere affection for our simpleminded commandant,
+Monsieur, your tale is good enough for any honest man and a father of
+babes like myself. But this town of Casablanca is, in effect, a
+haystack. Your quarry has the best of chances to act the needle."</p>
+
+<p>He opened a door into an outer office and shouted a name.</p>
+
+<p>"Sergeant Perinaud!"</p>
+
+<p>A body filled the doorway and entered, bending the last few inches of
+its stature. The sergeant saluted and unfolded himself, his eyes
+reviewing the company with affable respect about two metres above the
+floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Visit the guardroom at each gate, see the lieutenants of the Spanish
+police and bring me back a list of parties which have left the town
+since morning. This is a matter of haste."</p>
+
+<p>The sergeant saluted again and then hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it permitted first to speak?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>The major nodded jerkily.</p>
+
+<p>"It is, by chance, the movements of two men and a woman which are in
+question?" speculated Perinaud.</p>
+
+<p>Major d'Hubert opened his lips, shut them tight, meditated a moment, and
+then spoke. He turned and looked at his visitors.</p>
+
+<p>"The child? Is it of a stature to be disguised as a woman?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>The sergeant interrupted with an apologetic gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"The figure of the woman I suggest was not seen by me. She travelled in
+an <i>arba</i>. My attention was drawn to the party thus. Two hours ago a
+band of the Beni M'Geel, Berbers, left by the eastern gate as for Ber
+Rechid. They had with them two Arabs and a woman under the canopy of
+which I spoke. Arab and Berber, especially if the latter are of the Beni
+M'Geel, do not usually travel together."</p>
+
+<p>"You observed the men?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not narrowly, my Major. One was of a smiling countenance, hook-nosed,
+and clad in a <i>djelab</i> of brown. He walked beside the <i>arba</i> and his
+talk, as I judged it, was to the woman, who, however, made no reply. The
+other had the hood of his <i>haik</i> pulled far over his face. I did not see
+it."</p>
+
+<p>The major sat down at his desk, wrote a few lines swiftly, dashed sand
+upon the ink, and handed the completed note to his underling.</p>
+
+<p>"Let that be taken to General d'Amade without delay. Search may at the
+same time be made in the town for an Englishman, his child, and a Moor
+attendant who landed from a launch of the <i>Diomède</i> some three hours
+back. The messenger may await the general's answer and bring it to me
+here."</p>
+
+<p>As the giant saluted for the third time and diminished himself into the
+doorway, Major d'Hubert confronted his friends with a pessimistic shake
+of the head.</p>
+
+<p>"My instinct is that Perinaud has already put his finger on the mystery.
+Your milord must be a man of resource. To have engaged the services of
+some of these wolves of Beni M'Geel within an hour of landing in a
+strange town shows more than talent. It amounts to genius."</p>
+
+<p>"This servant of his, Muhammed, is no stranger to the port," said
+Aylmer. "We learned that before we left Tangier. He is a well-known gun
+runner, and stands high in his profession. He has made these
+arrangements."</p>
+
+<p>Commandant Rattier flung aside his taciturnity with a suddenly impulsive
+oath.</p>
+
+<p>"Name of all little names!" he cried. "Do we sit and discuss this matter
+as if it were a comedietta in which we take no more than the languid
+interest of the dilettante! Are they not to be pursued&mdash;this past master
+of perjury and his lieutenant? Are we to mount the town walls and wave
+them affectionate farewells?"</p>
+
+<p>D'Hubert arched his brows with protest.</p>
+
+<p>"Pursuit? Certainly there is a question of pursuit, if it is allowed. I
+have just sent a <i>précis</i> of your story to the commander-in-chief with a
+request for his leave to send a patrol. In a very few minutes we shall
+learn whether or no we have his permission."</p>
+
+<p>"Permission!" Rattier roared the word in the major's face. "I, Paul
+Rattier, do you see, have been made the laughing-stock of the fleet and,
+in time, no doubt, of half Europe! Am I to wait your general's
+permission to chase this scoundrel to Timbuctoo, if I so wish? I am the
+senior officer of marine here. I give myself leave, understand me&mdash;I!"</p>
+
+<p>"And these amiable Berbers?" asked the major, sarcastically. "Supposing
+they turn upon you and demand your reasons, and estimate your powers?
+Suppose, to be blunt, my friend, they put a bullet through your brains?"</p>
+
+<p>"Would that be any worse than wearing this hat of ridicule which this
+Baron de Landon has put upon my head? No Moor or Touareg or Berber shall
+stand between me and the object of my just retaliation, if I confront
+him!"</p>
+
+<p>A small bell tinkled in a corner. D'Hubert made a gesture of apology as
+he went towards a cabinet screened from the general office. He came back
+grinning.</p>
+
+<p>"My Paul," he chuckled, "there will be shortly an insuperable barrier
+between you and your desire. In another hour you will not be the senior
+officer of marine at Casablanca. I learn by wireless that the
+<i>Barfleur</i>, with the admiral on board, enters the roads within the
+hour."</p>
+
+<p>Rattier stood for an instant motionless. Then he turned and darted for
+the door.</p>
+
+<p>Before his fingers reached the handle Aylmer's grip was on his shoulder.
+With a passionate gesture of repulse the commandant shook him off.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not one to await admirals!" he roared. "I go to make arrangements.
+Within half an hour I leave the town&mdash;I. If I have to walk I will follow
+these Berber scoundrels, yes, if I have to crawl upon my knees!"</p>
+
+<p>As the two wrestled and argued on the threshold, the door opened from
+the outside. The massive proportions of the sergeant towered over them
+in respectful amazement. He saluted and deferentially edged a way for
+himself towards D'Hubert.</p>
+
+<p>"The general was in the act of passing, my Major," he explained. "He
+read your note and wrote his answer on the back in five words&mdash;he was
+amiable enough to inform me."</p>
+
+<p>The major untwisted the little roll of soiled paper and as he inspected
+it a smile creased his cheek. He chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>"A half troop of Goumiers!" he read. He looked at the frowning face of
+the commandant.</p>
+
+<p>"No need to go alone, my Paul. There is your escort." He hesitated a
+moment, debating. "Do either of you, by chance, speak Arabic?"</p>
+
+<p>"Am I an interpreter?" asked Rattier, bitterly. "Does one need a grammar
+and dictionary to arrest half a dozen scoundrels who are perfectly well
+aware why they are being chased, and whom one will take the liberty of
+shooting if they resist capture? For that plain English or French&mdash;or,
+for all practical purposes, Chinese&mdash;will suffice. Avoid alarming
+yourself on that subject, <i>mon ami</i>."</p>
+
+<p>The major grinned.</p>
+
+<p>"I was not thinking of your quarry but your colleagues, my pigeon. The
+Goumiers speak their own <i>argot</i>. They are good-hearted children, but
+apt to be tempestuous in matters of fighting." He meditated through
+another minute before he spoke with quick decision. "Sergeant! Prepare
+to accompany M. le Commandant within fifteen minutes."</p>
+
+<p>Perinaud saluted with entire imperturbability.</p>
+
+<p>"And my instructions, my Major?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"To return with the prisoners which Commandant Rattier will indicate to
+you, or, failing their capture, within twenty-four hours."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Bien!</i>" Perinaud folded himself anaconda-like into the back office and
+disappeared. Ten minutes later, a period which D'Hubert filled with much
+voluble advice, there was the tramping of many horses' feet without.
+Aylmer and Rattier strolled out into the open at the major's heels.</p>
+
+<p>Under the command of one of their own native officers, forty horsemen of
+the famous Algerian yeomanry had reined up in the dusty street. They sat
+in their high peaked saddles, watching keenly the faces of D'Hubert and
+his companions. Aylmer noted the eager, alert expectation which filled
+each flashing brown eye. The Goumier, though he has proved his valor in
+more than one pitched battle against the men of his own blood, is not a
+man of war as we understand it. Man&oelig;uvring, tactics, the orderliness
+of drill and discipline are not inherent in his nature. But the raid,
+the foray, the looting expedition are to him the apex and apogee of
+human bliss. Thin, modest of stomach and worldly possessions, he passes
+over the quickly reached horizon of the desert and is forgotten of the
+well-drilled colleagues he leaves behind. But see his return! Swelling
+with good victuals, jingling with caparison of desert wealth, with
+chicken and kid pendent from his saddle-bow, who more popular than he?
+The savory incense of his mess attracts all nostrils; his lavishly
+scattered loot widens the already capacious circle of his friends.
+Winning it, or wasting it when won, loot is the pivot on which his
+reckless, joyous, heedless existence swings.</p>
+
+<p>Rising from the rear as a cathedral tower rises above the encircling
+dwellings at its base, Perinaud's head and shoulders topped the ranks.
+His amiable smile, this time, had about it something of more than
+ordinary deference. It was the near kin of a smirk, and his yellow
+moustache was twisted fiercely upwards. Aylmer followed the direction of
+his glance to find it focussed upon Claire Van Arlen.</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes met his. She made him a little gesture, half of appeal, as it
+seemed, half of command.</p>
+
+<p>As he covered the few yards which separated them, he noted, with a queer
+tightening of the heart, the deep shadows which had grown beneath her
+eyes. But at the same time it was not all anxiety or weariness which
+her face expressed. There was determination also. And this was reflected
+in Mr. Van Arlen's glance. It dwelled upon Aylmer with expectancy and
+more than expectancy,&mdash;with hope.</p>
+
+<p>Without preamble he answered the question which their eyes had asked.
+They heard him in silence to the end, and as he finished, the girl's
+first comment was no more than a little sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"The sergeant's surmise is right; my instinct tells me that," said
+Aylmer. "A few hours&mdash;and I shall be putting the child in your arms
+again."</p>
+
+<p>She looked up at the double rank of horsemen. A sudden vivid flash of
+feeling passed over her features. Her breath came with a little pant.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, if I could ride with you!" she said fiercely. "If I could do more
+than wait!"</p>
+
+<p>The color mounted to her cheeks, to her brow. A new note sounded in her
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>"If they show fight&mdash;these men? If, rather than lose the child, he"&mdash;her
+voice sank unsteadily for a moment&mdash;"does him an injury? You would not
+spare him?"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled a little wearily.</p>
+
+<p>"So you distrust me still?" he asked. "Why should I spare him? Because,
+to my shame, we are of one blood?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Van Arlen's thin hand rose in deprecation.</p>
+
+<p>"We can leave this matter confidently in Captain Aylmer's hands," he
+said. "We have only the one thing to think of&mdash;the child."</p>
+
+<p>"No!" she cried vehemently. "I want the child, but I want more than
+that. I want retribution. I want Landon in the dust. I want him made to
+feel, as I feel. The child is much, but he is not all. Have you
+forgotten the last eight years of my sister's life? Do you remember what
+she has undergone and still has to undergo if the father of her son wins
+this trick, as my heart tells me he will win it? I want vengeance. I
+want every chance to grasp it seized. I should not hesitate, where his
+kinsman might."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer nodded gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"I understand," he said quietly. "Perhaps it is natural. But you keep
+forgetting the one thing&mdash;that I work for my own reward. Even pity would
+be a frail barrier between me and that."</p>
+
+<p>Watching her keenly, he saw a quiver of repulsion tremble about her
+lips, but it did not stay. She set them rather into grimness. She looked
+at him keenly, debatingly, indeed, as if she weighed his words and
+sought to set a value on them.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said, and there was a breathlessness in her tone as if she
+slurred words which she did not dare to let herself hear. "I, too,
+understand. And my father would consider no price too high for the
+service which won back his grandchild, and removed the menace of
+Landon's existence from our lives."</p>
+
+<p>Van Arlen bowed unconsciously&mdash;his courteous, instinctive inclination of
+assent.</p>
+
+<p>"Such a service would be beyond price or reward," he said quietly. "We
+could only do our best."</p>
+
+<p>But there was a queerly puzzled look in his eyes as they wandered from
+Aylmer to his daughter's face. He frowned a little, still unconsciously,
+in the throes of an obvious bewilderment.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer looked at him once, swiftly, speculatively, and then turned
+steadily towards Claire.</p>
+
+<p>"And you?" he asked quietly.</p>
+
+<p>She did not flinch; she did not even show, this time, any sign of
+repulsion. The note in her voice now was exasperation, the nervous
+defiance of one confronting an intolerable situation from which there
+was no escape.</p>
+
+<p>"I? I should think as my father thinks," she said coolly. She turned as
+she spoke and looked impatiently at the line of waiting horsemen.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," he said briskly. He made a sign towards Perinaud, who
+jogged forward leading the spare horse whose bridle he had been holding.
+Aylmer vaulted into the saddle, and reined in beside his friend Rattier,
+who, using the pommel for a desk, was writing a few lines of instruction
+to his lieutenant. A guttural order rumbled from the native officer's
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>The line of horsemen wheeled and deployed into lines of four. With a
+jingle of accoutrements, they jogged off into the dust of the allies
+towards the eastern gate.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE AMBUSH OF THE BROOM</h3>
+
+
+<p>"The wells of El Djebir, Monsieur," explained Sergeant Perinaud. "It is
+here we should find our men, if they are proceeding by the shortest
+route to their hills. If not&mdash;" He shrugged his shoulders significantly.</p>
+
+<p>The horses were roused from their gentle amble into a gallop. The dust
+rose from fourscore hoofs as the Goumiers raced down in an enveloping
+cloud upon the cluster of palms and thicket of broom scrub which
+surrounded the watering-place. They pulled their horses upon their
+haunches; they shouted in hoarse disappointment. The shadowed
+resting-place beneath the palms was empty. Not a living soul was in
+sight.</p>
+
+<p>Perinaud shrugged his shoulders again.</p>
+
+<p>"This is very conclusive, Monsieur. The party we seek has thought fit to
+leave the open road and to bury themselves in the recesses of the jungle
+and the northern gorges of the river. They did not do that without a
+reason. It remains to follow, if we can."</p>
+
+<p>The native officer shouted something and Perinaud turned swiftly in the
+saddle to stare down the track which they had been following. A white
+figure bestriding a brown horse was thundering towards them, the rider's
+<i>haik</i> fluttering out snowily against the dun background of the earth.</p>
+
+<p>"So Monsieur thought fit to leave me&mdash;me!" expostulated Daoud, as he
+drew rein at Aylmer's side. "I, I who address you, am told by the chance
+gossip of the Sôk that this expedition has set out without a word of
+warning, to seek bandits&mdash;where?" He threw abroad his arms in derision.
+"On the broad and open road, within sound, nay, almost within sight, of
+the patrols of Casablanca. I ask, is it here that knaves are likely to
+hide their knavery? Your venture and its object are already the pivot on
+which the laughter of the market-place swings."</p>
+
+<p>He turned and pointed vehemently towards the north.</p>
+
+<p>"Has none of your trained spies had the wit or the courage to tell you
+that a hundred of these Beni M'Geel Berbers have encamped in the
+thickets of the Bou Gherba gorge this ten days back? And yet the
+market-place knows it, as it knows a hundred things beneath your
+concern."</p>
+
+<p>Perinaud looked the Moor up and down. Then he turned leisurely towards
+Aylmer.</p>
+
+<p>"He is a safe man, this?" he asked. "You guarantee him?"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer smiled, and shrugged his shoulders towards the waiting Goumiers.</p>
+
+<p>"They are all for their own hand, these, are they not, Sergeant? Yes, I
+will guarantee that he seeks to serve me, for the moment, and in serving
+me, himself. It is the way with these desert folk. They cannot manage
+large issues, and they split into factions to follow small ones. Let us
+hear him and, if you see no objection, take his advice. He has been in
+Casablanca before."</p>
+
+<p>Perinaud grunted and eyed the Moor grudgingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, man of infinite knowledge," he said in Arabic. "You
+propose&mdash;what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are there two courses before us?" asked Daoud, disdainfully. "Or are we
+to await reinforcements? We have to surround this lair of desert cats."</p>
+
+<p>"Where?" asked Perinaud, laconically.</p>
+
+<p>The Moor wheeled his stallion with an elaborate caracole.</p>
+
+<p>"If the Sidi had used my services from the first," he said, "he would
+have been saved an hour's ride. Forward, Sidi!"</p>
+
+<p>The sergeant lifted his eyebrows at Aylmer with an air of comical
+resignation. To the native officer he gave a decisive little nod. With
+Daoud leading, the brown stallion arching his neck in remonstrance to a
+tightened rein and goading spur, the column broke formation and in
+single file turned northwards into the broom scrub which fringes the
+tilled lands of the Chawia.</p>
+
+<p>The horsemen rode in silence. The mantle of Rattier's taciturnity, rent
+to rags in D'Hubert's office, seemed to have been restored to its
+pristine imperviousness, seemed, indeed, to hang heavy upon the spirits
+of the whole company. Now and again the commandant's lips moved
+uneasily, but the spoken word died still-born. A Goumier would address
+fervent maledictions to the memory of the female ancestors of a
+stumbling horse; curt conferences took place at long intervals between
+Perinaud and the native officer. But apart from this, the thud of hoofs
+meeting sand or earth and the dull rap of rein or stirrup leather were
+all the sounds which broke the stillness. The heavy noontide heat seemed
+to have swallowed into silence all sound. For sound denotes creative
+energy, and energy, when the sun is at its zenith in South Morocco, is
+sapped.</p>
+
+<p>Their course, as Aylmer was quick to notice, led perpetually upward, but
+in gradients which almost eluded notice. Gray blue in the haze of
+distance, the rolling uplands culminated in a range of low hills, but
+these were a full day's march beyond their powers. Their goal, if it
+were to be reached within daylight, must be nearer than that. His
+attention, as the hours went monotonously by, was at last drawn to a gap
+in the far mapped expanse of vegetation.</p>
+
+<p>A line of green, deeper and of more luxuriant growth than the thickets
+around them, divided the jungle from east to west. Daoud, turning in his
+saddle, waved his hand in an important gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"The Gorge of the Bou Djerba, Sidi," he said. "It is my advice that I go
+forward to reconnoitre&mdash;alone."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer looked at Perinaud. The sergeant shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur guarantees this fellow, I understand? Well, let him justify
+himself. I have no objections."</p>
+
+<p>Rattier interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"It is well understood that I deal with this M. de Landon if he is
+there, I alone? Your man, now, if he suddenly confronts him&mdash;" He broke
+off with a meaning gesture. "I do not wish my interview with him
+anticipated."</p>
+
+<p>In spite of himself, a smile broke the imperturbability of the
+sergeant's face. With a suggestive jerk of the hand he dismissed Daoud,
+who cantered on into and was lost in the jungle of mallow. Perinaud
+turned sympathetic and now perfectly grave features towards the
+commandant.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur may be easy in his mind," he said quietly. "The man we seek,
+if I have understood his talents rightly, is hardly likely to be subdued
+without the display of some force and intelligence."</p>
+
+<p>He turned to give the order to dismount. Rattier watched him with an air
+of baffled exasperation. There had been a gentle emphasis on the last
+two words which could scarcely be misunderstood, and as the sailor
+ruminated over them, his taciturnity showed renewed signs of failing
+before the rising tide of his wrath. A sudden diversion averted an
+outbreak.</p>
+
+<p>For a gunshot rang out among the woodland silences into which Daoud had
+disappeared. It was instantly replied to by the shriller snap of a
+revolver. And this was followed by a fusillade of five more reports as
+the weapon was emptied. The Moor's voice was suddenly uplifted.</p>
+
+<p>"To me, Sidi!" he was shouting vehemently. "To me!"</p>
+
+<p>The native officer thundered an order. In a twinkling the men were back
+in their saddles and, in irregular formation, threading the aisles of
+thicket at a canter. Aylmer and Rattier followed the sergeant, riding
+abreast.</p>
+
+<p>There came another report. A bullet whistled between the pair, and from
+Rattier came a little growl of satisfaction. If there was to be a fight,
+he seemed to imply, his promised interview with Landon would assume
+proportions which were entirely pleasing to him. Perinaud increased his
+horse's pace, flinging alert glances each side of him rather than in
+front.</p>
+
+<p>A couple of hundred yards at speed and the forest maze opened into a
+wide clearing, deeply overgrown with mallow and broom. Through the
+middle of this, his horse laboring against the growth which was full
+five feet high, rode Daoud, revolver in hand. A short distance ahead of
+him the green thicket was grooved in half a dozen places, as unseen
+bodies crashed through. Daoud's aim was poised and then withdrawn a
+score of times in as many seconds. The flicker of a white <i>haik</i> would
+show for a brief instant here and there, and then be swallowed by the
+jungle.</p>
+
+<p>Daoud would answer these appearances with a bullet, one which apparently
+invariably missed its mark, for the echo of a mocking triumph greeted
+them. He turned irritably in the direction of his companions.</p>
+
+<p>He waved his hand significantly, motioning them to deploy right and
+left, to surround the thicket. Perinaud answered with a comprehending
+nod.</p>
+
+<p>But Rattier had neither the time nor the inclination for a display of
+tactics. As Daoud turned his horse to emerge from the mallow, the
+commandant spurred his charger into the thick of it. And he shouted, he
+whirled up his right hand, grasping his revolver, with fierce
+gesticulations of encouragement.</p>
+
+<p>The Goumiers saw, heard, and found little room for hesitation in their
+mood. Like a torrent released at the breaking of a dam, they followed.
+Perinaud thundered an ineffectual protest.</p>
+
+<p>It fell on deaf ears. The green brake was furrowed by a dozen lanes
+before their impact and then, relentlessly, as it seemed, closed behind
+them. The horses bucked, plunged, but made little headway. From one of
+them came a sudden whinnying shriek of pain.</p>
+
+<p>Then it sank under its rider as the knife which had severed its tendons
+slipped back into the cover from which it had been so swiftly and so
+silently thrust.</p>
+
+<p>The fallen Goumier cleared himself and scrambled to his feet. His face
+alone was clear in the sea of vegetation, and it was a mask of anger and
+bewilderment. And then it, too, was gone with a sudden panting cry.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer gave a little gasp. The head was there and then it was not. It
+sank into the green as the swimmer sinks into the blue in a
+shark-infested sea. But this shark was a human one, and its teeth a long
+Berber knife. The fugitives of the Beni M'Geel had chosen their
+battle-ground well.</p>
+
+<p>Horse or man, lance or carbine&mdash;what were they against the daggers which
+the tussocks veiled? Mocking cries echoed in the thicket. Another horse
+shrieked and fell; another face showed white above the green and then
+was gone. The Goumiers snarled with rage as they spurred furiously
+forward, but the clinging mallow held them, shackled them, suffocated
+them with its density. There was a note of panic in their shouts; they
+battled no longer for victory but for escape.</p>
+
+<p>The leader of the reckless charge was in slightly better case than the
+majority. Rattier and one or two others, by chance of circumstances,
+stood in wider spaces, where the dagger men could not reach them unseen.
+They sat in their saddles, alert for opportunity, quivering with rage,
+but useless. Their glances flashed from side to side, their eyes
+gleamed, but opportunity evaded them. And the cries of the unseen enemy
+still mocked them from the ambush.</p>
+
+<p>Carried away by impulse, Aylmer would have joined the charge. Perinaud's
+hand fell upon his reins with a grip of iron. Aylmer made as if he would
+release them by force.</p>
+
+<p>The sergeant made a gesture of appeal.</p>
+
+<p>"No, my Captain! This is serious. A little coolness, a little restraint,
+and we pull them out of this! But to follow! That spells death for us
+all!"</p>
+
+<p>He leaped from the saddle, drew his carbine from the bucket, and flung
+to Aylmer the reins of both horses.</p>
+
+<p>"If Monsieur will be so obliging?" he said quickly, and turned towards
+the nearest tree, a cedar which towered twenty feet above the dwarfed
+bolls of cork. He climbed lithely, rapidly, resting, at last, within a
+few feet of the top. He leaned his carbine upon a bough, took a steady
+aim, and fired.</p>
+
+<p>A shriek answered the report&mdash;a shriek muffled in the blanket of the
+broom.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Courage, mes enfants!</i>" said Perinaud, placidly. "That accounted for
+one, and from here I see all. There are but six. Give me time and the
+affair completes itself effectually."</p>
+
+<p>Again he dwelled upon his aim, hesitated, fired, shook his head in
+self-reproach and fired again. This time he gave a little nod of
+satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"Two!" he cried complacently. "Two, my children!" and the report of his
+rifle punctuated the announcement. "So!" went on the sergeant, as if he
+commented on the score at a rifle range. "So! We write full stop to
+<i>Monsieur le troisième</i>. Aha! <i>Messieurs quatrième</i>, <i>cinquième</i> and
+<i>sixième</i>&mdash;it is poor stuff to push through, the broom. No, I do not see
+you, Messieurs, but I see where you run like rabbits, and perhaps we may
+chance a bullet&mdash;there!"</p>
+
+<p>The report of the last cartridge in the magazine was answered by another
+yell. A brown-clad body shot into the air out of the undergrowth and
+subsided limply. Perinaud nodded again.</p>
+
+<p>"Through the brain, my friend, through the brain. Yes, I still see you,
+my two little doves. We have to reload. Four for one magazine of five
+cartridges is not bad, you will allow. You are trapped, are you not? In
+the broom you cannot escape me; in the open you will be ridden down.
+Well, it is to be in the broom, is it? So! <i>Voilà, Monsieur le
+cinquième!</i> That closes your account. As for you, my sixth friend, you
+have chosen the thicket, have you? You are very still; we must
+speculate, we must invite the co-operation of chance, who is a good
+friend to Sergeant Perinaud as a rule. There! No, is that not in the
+middle of the target? We must try again. Umph! I wonder if you are,
+after all, dead, my pigeon. Holà, there! Monsieur le Commandant. If you
+will be good enough to step fifteen long paces to the right, following
+the motion of my hand, you will be able to inform me if my last shot was
+a bull's-eye, an outer, or even&mdash;shame to me if it is so&mdash;a miss. Yes,
+Monsieur, that is the spot. Where the patch of broom outcrops between
+those two stumps of cork."</p>
+
+<p>Rattier beat a road laboriously through the clinging stems as the
+sergeant's finger motioned. A sudden muffled exclamation burst from him;
+he lurched sideways, stumbled, and fell prone. The green stalks rustled
+and shook as something brown and indistinguishable shot through them in
+the direction in which the waiting Goumiers were thickest.</p>
+
+<p>Perinaud gave a warning cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Look to yourselves! I cannot shoot; he is in line between us!"</p>
+
+<p>One of the horsemen shouted and spurred his stallion towards the fringe
+of the undergrowth furthest from the point at which the charge had
+entered it. His impulsive action countered Perinaud's manifest purpose
+of firing, for he, too, had seen the agitation of the mallow in that
+direction. The horseman bounded forward, the horse clearing the
+obstructions in a series of jerky little leaps. Beside the edge of the
+clearing they halted, the man searching the cover in front of him and on
+each side keenly.</p>
+
+<p>A brown something snaked out of the thicket at his back. Steel flashed
+in the sun. The Goumier toppled from the saddle, and a brown figure,
+bowing flat across the horse's withers, seemed to have replaced him
+almost in the moment of his fall. Spurred desperately by his new rider,
+the stallion burst away down the cork tree alleys.</p>
+
+<p>A ragged volley rattled out. Splinters flew wide from a dozen trees, but
+horse and rider fled on. The Goumiers called fiercely on the name of a
+dozen saints of Islam to qualify their rage as they thrust their
+chargers out of the tangle in pursuit. Perinaud and their officer yelled
+strenuous commands.</p>
+
+<p>Crestfallen and sullen, the troopers reined in, listening in silence to
+the commination addressed to them from the pulpit of the cedar.</p>
+
+<p>"Is one lesson insufficient?" thundered Perinaud. "Do we practise the
+arts of war or are we conducting a <i>ralli-papier</i>? Like hares you were
+decoyed into this ambush, and, flinging your red-hot experience to the
+winds, you are prepared to be drawn, as likely as not, into another.
+Collect yourselves, morally as well as physically, if you please."</p>
+
+<p>They reined in among the cork trees, and half a dozen, flinging their
+reins to comrades, pushed back on foot into the cover. A string of
+oaths and maledictions, twice repeated, told of what they found. They
+came back with the sullen tread of those bearing the heavy burdens of
+defeat and death. They laid the bodies of their two comrades at the foot
+of the cedar.</p>
+
+<p>Rattier, leaning upon Aylmer's arm, swore vehemently. The blood dripped
+from a gash across his wrist, but he raised it to shake a fist in the
+direction taken by the fugitive.</p>
+
+<p>"Another item in M. de Landon's ledger, name of all names!" he cried.
+"But we shall see, my friends, we shall see. The hand is not played out
+yet, believe me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not," agreed Aylmer, "but you, at any rate, have cut out of the
+deal, or have been cut out," he added significantly, pointing to the
+wounded arm.</p>
+
+<p>The commandant drew himself away with a fierce jerk.</p>
+
+<p>"I!" he cried. "Is a cut finger&mdash;a graze&mdash;to send me weeping to the
+ambulance? The scoundrel who deceived me I pursue to the world's end! He
+has scored once more. It is the last time&mdash;this!"</p>
+
+<p>He raised himself to his full height in a grandiloquent gesture
+and&mdash;fell fainting into Perinaud's arms. The sergeant grunted morosely
+and pointed to a crimson stain which had welled through the blue tunic
+and was rapidly spreading.</p>
+
+<p>"If it is not serious, I thank Our Lady and all the listening Saints for
+this!" he said devoutly. "He is impossible as a colleague on
+reconnaissance, this energetic commandant. It was his recklessness which
+led these men into a trap which at any other moment they would have
+avoided. We have lost two men and five horses by the result of this
+escapade. What are your suggestions now, Monsieur?"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"For the moment have you not done enough?" he asked. "After all, your
+service is to France, not to intruders like myself. My Moorish servant
+and I might continue to reconnoitre alone. Your hands are full enough,
+are they not?"</p>
+
+<p>The other looked at him queerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps Monsieur thinks that so far we have been a hindrance rather
+than a help to his purposes. Monsieur has reason. At the same time we
+might justly, in my opinion, be permitted another chance to repair our
+prestige."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer smiled. Perinaud's voice was chilly. The glance he directed at
+the crestfallen Goumiers let it be inferred that his words were also
+designed to reach their address. They shuffled and kicked at the ground
+restlessly as they listened.</p>
+
+<p>"It is for you, of course, to direct matters, Sergeant!" he said
+quickly. "But the commandant, without a doubt, must be removed at once
+to hospital."</p>
+
+<p>"Without a doubt, Monsieur," agreed Perinaud, with sudden cheerfulness.
+"We will escort him and the dismounted men out of the forest into the
+open farm lands, where patrols are not infrequent and nothing is to be
+feared. They will then be about twenty kilometres from the town. The
+best mounted will proceed as quickly as possible to fetch the ambulance.
+Of the others, twenty will escort the commandant's stretcher&mdash;it is
+perfectly feasible to make a good one of poles which we will cut and
+over which we will button two greatcoats&mdash;the five new-made <i>fantassins</i>
+will walk. The remaining dozen and you and I, Monsieur, will
+proceed&mdash;with energy, if you please, but certainly with prudence."</p>
+
+<p>Perinaud closed his little homily with the satisfied air of an orator
+who has arrived at and correctly delivered an anticipated peroration.</p>
+
+<p>And chance, who may have been listening, offered yet another of her
+favors to her protégé. As the little column debouched from the trees
+into the open expanse of alluvial country, a cloud of brown dust was
+rising on the far side of the fringing barley fields. Perinaud gave an
+exclamation of content.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the Tirailleurs with their major," he explained. "They have
+patrolled the Ber Rechid road and made a reconnaissance to get cattle.
+They will have an ambulance, or at least a mule litter."</p>
+
+<p>He put his horse to the gallop. The others, following more sedately, saw
+him reach and disappear among the ranks of white-uniformed men, whose
+cummerbunds and tarbooshes winked a cheerful scarlet against the dun
+fallow or green cropping of the fields. And there was an air of
+animation about the column accounted for, perhaps, by the fact that
+innumerable kids frisked about their mothers as the captured goats were
+herded along the track, while droves of small, wiry cattle bellowed and
+butted at each other, their captors, and every moving object within
+reach of their serviceable little horns.</p>
+
+<p>Perinaud, who had dismounted, was standing and speaking with an air of
+respect and precision to a mounted officer. The latter turned as Aylmer
+and his companions approached, and the former could barely restrain a
+start of consternation and surprise. For a deep, flaming groove dinted
+the man's forehead from temple to temple, while the hand which he raised
+in salute was one huge scar from knuckles to wrist. His brown eyes
+inspected Aylmer with friendly attention.</p>
+
+<p>"At your service, <i>mon Capitaine</i>," he said. "Sergeant Perinaud has
+explained your needs."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer began to express his thanks. The other nodded pleasantly and gave
+an order. From the rear an ambulance was trotted forward: a
+gray-moustached doctor in uniform swung himself from his saddle and bent
+over Rattier, who was still unconscious.</p>
+
+<p>A moment later he looked up.</p>
+
+<p>"Loss of blood," he said laconically. "He has a gash two fingers deep
+behind the shoulder. Severe, but not serious&mdash;with care. We will see to
+him."</p>
+
+<p>The officer nodded again. He looked at Aylmer.</p>
+
+<p>"And yourself, Monsieur?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer made a gesture towards the forest and the distant uplands.</p>
+
+<p>"With your leave, we will continue our&mdash;investigations, Major," he said.</p>
+
+<p>The other shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"The forest, <i>mon ami</i>? We, do you see, have confined our operations so
+far to the plough lands, the open. I have no store of experience to draw
+upon for your advice. You will be pioneers. I shall hope to have the
+benefit of your experience on your return. Maillot is my name, Monsieur,
+and I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you at the headquarters of my
+regiment outside the Fedallah Gate. For the moment, then, <i>au revoir</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled cheerfully, saluted, and gave an order. The tramp and jingle
+of the march were renewed. The dust cloud began to form again where it
+had settled, and the Tirailleurs swung off seawards with the elastic
+step which those who wear the <i>godillot</i> acquire, and which makes them
+the envy of their colleagues in the regulars who are doomed to the
+precise lacing of the <i>soulier</i>. Perinaud made a gesture of admiration,
+as with Aylmer and his half score of Goumiers he watched them go.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur has seen the bravest man and the finest leader of all the
+troops of France," he remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"Major Maillot?"</p>
+
+<p>"But certainly the major, Monsieur. He needs no medals to prove what he
+is and where he has been. His deeds are witnessed on his brow and
+hands."</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated and then spoke quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"I have no wish to vaunt the deeds of Frenchmen to you, a foreigner,
+Monsieur, but that is a man in whom we may take an honest pride. The
+scar you saw came to him by Settat. He and a picket were cut off from
+the main body by a hidden reserve of the enemy. They retreated fighting
+and were within measurable distance of safety. And then one of our
+fallen, whom they had left for dead, cried aloud out of the hands of the
+enemy. How these savages were dealing with him I shall not disgust
+Monsieur by telling. Suffice it to say that they were working the will
+of devils upon him and, in spite of his manhood, he shrieked. The major
+heard, and like a thunderbolt turned and charged straight for the enemy,
+and his men, without a thought of the peril, turned with him, a dozen
+perhaps, against five score. But those hundred Moors were in full
+retreat before the main body of the regiment raced up to the rescue, and
+they picked their major up wounded as you have seen, lying across the
+body of the man he had fought to save, with seven dead foes ringed round
+him.... They have a confident air, these Tirailleurs of ours. Some say
+an insolent one. Well, Monsieur, they have their pride, it must be
+allowed, but God knows when they are led as that man leads they have a
+right to it."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer nodded. Slowly they turned their horses' heads forestwards again.
+Perinaud looked at the line of trees abstractedly and then back again at
+the receding column.</p>
+
+<p>"France does not desert her children if she remembers," he remarked
+quietly. "It is well that we met these men and their major. He is a man
+who will see to it that we are not forgotten, if chance wills that we do
+not soon return. The task of seeking us would be one after his own
+heart, and his Tirailleurs would think with him." He smiled confidently.
+"So we may go forward with an easy mind, <i>mon Capitaine</i>. We are
+pioneers, as the major said. To pioneers should come adventures, if they
+are worthy of their name."</p>
+
+<p>He touched his stallion's flank with the spur. The little band of
+horsemen cantered up and into the shadow of the cork trees. And there
+was an air of arrogance and recklessness about the riders. All trace of
+discomfiture of an hour back was gone. It was as if the Tirailleurs had
+breathed an infection of valor around them&mdash;a bacillus of intrepidity
+which their major had cultivated with the point of his untiring sword.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE TRAP</h3>
+
+
+<p>"That our friends have left is obvious," said Daoud. "The question is
+how long ago and whither."</p>
+
+<p>The litter of a recently disturbed encampment cumbered the ground. Rags,
+the feathers of lately plucked chickens, the ashes of recently
+extinguished fires abounded. But whether the camp had been struck days
+or only hours before it was impossible to determine. Night as well as
+day had been rainless, and the dry dust left no trail perceptible to
+European eyes. Daoud, however, examined the soil carefully.</p>
+
+<p>"They have gone south," he declared at last. "They have struck out of
+the forest and back towards the plain. This grows interesting."</p>
+
+<p>Perinaud gave a sniff.</p>
+
+<p>"The reason is obvious," he said a little contemptuously. "Where did
+they obtain water? From the spring which welled up at the foot of that
+cactus to the left. But now it is dry and cracking mud."</p>
+
+<p>Daoud nodded grudgingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly," he allowed. "The nearest wells are at Ain Djemma."</p>
+
+<p>"Held in force by two companies of the Legion," said Perinaud. "They are
+hardly likely to show themselves there. No, if they have gone south they
+are seeking the Wad el Mella. They will follow the stream through the
+gorge towards their own foothills from which it issues."</p>
+
+<p>"This river? How far is it?" asked Aylmer.</p>
+
+<p>"Eight kilometres, possibly ten," said Perinaud. "There are <i>duars</i> and
+encampments along its banks in a dozen places. We ought to get news of
+our men, even if we do not overtake them."</p>
+
+<p>"Our horses have come a matter of thirty kilometres already," said
+Aylmer.</p>
+
+<p>"Then as soon as possible they must do ten more," answered the sergeant,
+energetically. "Without water we cannot camp, any more than our friends
+of the Beni M'Geel. <i>En avance!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer drew his horse up beside Perinaud's as for the second time they
+left the shelter of the trees and ambled out on to the plain. The
+westering sun was turning it to broad belts of dun, and yellow, and
+green, as the slanting beams fell upon earth, or marigold weed, or
+crops. Four or five miles distant to their front the rolling uplands
+culminated in a belt of squat but far-branching trees.</p>
+
+<p>"There, one may suppose, are the river and the gorge," he suggested.
+"The inhabitants of these <i>duars</i>, of which you speak? How will they
+greet us?"</p>
+
+<p>Perinaud shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"It remains for Fate to show us, Monsieur. There were some drastic
+whippings of the Moors within this district a few weeks back. How well
+they have learned the lesson taught them then we shall have to prove."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not with the purpose of getting embroiled in skirmishes that I
+have come," he said quietly. "You understand that my duty, for the
+moment, is to keep myself alive until my object is achieved."</p>
+
+<p>Perinaud grinned drily.</p>
+
+<p>"That is a remark which a poltroon would not have dared to make,
+Monsieur, and shows you to be a brave man. Be assured that my efforts
+towards maintaining an unperforated skin will be as energetic as your
+own. Hysterical madness, such as we were involved in in the forest,
+shall not recur, if I can help it. My purpose is to camp, as soon as we
+reach water, and then to allow your omniscient Monsieur Daoud to conduct
+his investigations under cover of the darkness."</p>
+
+<p>As the red disk of the sun sank below the seaward horizon, they topped
+the gentle rise which terminated in a belt of trees. Not far below them,
+belling musically through the dusk, came the song of the ripples. Half a
+mile away, on the far side of the gorge, a dim light twinkled in the
+growing darkness.</p>
+
+<p>Perinaud pointed towards a group of palms.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, Monsieur," he explained, "you will find dry earth. You have your
+cloak. Your saddle is a practical pillow. I have bread, a ration or two
+of preserved soup, some beans, coffee, a tin of milk, sugar. At the
+<i>duar</i>, where we see that light, are&mdash;possibly&mdash;chickens. But we are
+quite as likely to receive a bullet. What does Monsieur advise?"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"An immediate picnic. In the friendliest of <i>duars</i> cannibal hordes
+thirsting for our blood would await us, if we were reckless enough to
+sleep among them. I prefer to housekeep <i>à la belle étoile</i>."</p>
+
+<p>The sergeant nodded and gave his orders. Sentries slipped right and left
+into the night. A tiny fire was kindled in a hollow between two
+boulders. The tins of preserved soup gave up their secrets, and the
+ration bread proved that the military bakers of France have discovered
+the secret of making loaves which will remain fresh and eatable through
+a whole week of desert marches. Coffee succeeded&mdash;coffee made in the
+empty vegetable tin, and worthy of Maxim's or the Ritz.</p>
+
+<p>Daoud drank his portion, shrugged his shoulders fatalistically at the
+sleeping places which the Goumiers were preparing, and then, without
+comment, vanished into the night.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer lay back upon his cloak, his head pillowed upon his arm, his pipe
+between his teeth. He was enjoying to the full the sensations of a
+pleasantly weary and well-fed horseman. The first drowsy challenge of
+sleep touched his eyes and brain.</p>
+
+<p>The very next instant, as it seemed to him, he was on his feet, revolver
+in hand, searching the dark aisles of the forest on either side. A shout
+had echoed from one of the sentries, a hoarse challenge followed almost
+on the instant by a shot.</p>
+
+<p>The cry was repeated, shriller this time with the insistence of anxiety.
+"<i>Au secours!</i>" came the Goumier's voice. "<i>Au secours!</i> There are a
+score of them; they are all around me!"</p>
+
+<p>In silence, but with a wave of the hand, Perinaud dispersed his men into
+open order and doubled towards the sounds of conflict. Aylmer ran with
+them, making more noise in his heavy boots than the whole of the party
+made in their <i>souliers</i>. He heard Perinaud whisper an emphatic oath of
+disgust as he tripped over a fallen branch and smashed heavily through a
+cactus bush. The next instant both of them fell together, over a soft,
+woolly obstruction, which stirred faintly under their feet. Meanwhile,
+half a dozen rifles were flashing red in the night, and the woodland
+echoes tossed the reports from thicket to thicket.</p>
+
+<p>Perinaud swore again viciously, scrambled to his feet, and shouted.</p>
+
+<p>"Imbeciles! Cease fire!" he thundered. "They are sheep, these Moors of
+yours, sheep! A pretty night's work! You have killed probably a dozen,
+and we have no means of transport."</p>
+
+<p>Shamefacedly the Goumiers crowded round to feel the fatness of the
+victim which had lain in Aylmer's path. As they felt and appraised it,
+their voices resumed a note of philosophic content. It was indeed a slur
+upon the collectedness of the Goumiers as a whole that Hassan el Fehmi,
+the sentry, had been betrayed into this indiscretion. But the dead
+sheep, look you, was of an unlooked-for plumpness, and breakfast must be
+partaken of sooner or later. There would be cutlets, and room might be
+found on a saddle or two for a couple of <i>gigots</i>. No, this was not all
+loss, this night alarm. There were compensations.</p>
+
+<p>Perinaud declined to meet these representations in the spirit in which
+they were made.</p>
+
+<p>"Looters! Robbers of hen roosts!" he cried. "The whole of your thoughts
+are centered, as ever, on your unworthy stomachs. The compensation for
+this outrage will be made to the owners from your pay, let me tell you,
+from your pay! You have raised the country on us with your shootings;
+within a matter of minutes we shall have the Moors here in earnest, be
+assured of that!"</p>
+
+<p>Wrathfully he led the way back to the bivouac and carefully extinguished
+every cinder of the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"And now," he ordered, "our duty is to wait&mdash;beside our horses. If it
+will not inconvenience Monsieur, I should be obliged if he will defer
+sleeping, for the present. If we are not molested for the next hour or
+two, it will be different. The moon rises before midnight and after that
+a couple of sentries will amply suffice."</p>
+
+<p>It was a memory which stayed by Aylmer for many a month&mdash;that long,
+silent, and very weary vigil of the next few hours. He sat, with his
+back supported by a palm trunk, the haltering rein of his horse in his
+hand, his eyes trying vainly to pierce the gloom which surrounded him,
+and his ears strained to attention.</p>
+
+<p>The forest, though in the windless calm not a leaf fluttered, was full
+of disquieting noises. There were rustlings, faint, half perceptible
+crackings of twigs, dull, muffled, resistant sounds from the earth which
+must surely be caused by human footfall. Once his whole frame sprung
+into startled alertness as a night bird shrieked in the cork branches
+not twenty yards away. The faint but distinct after-echo of a chorussed
+sigh told him how a dozen other pulses had leaped with his. The quick,
+irregular darting run of a small animal&mdash;a jerboa or a forest
+rat&mdash;produced a little less disturbing effect. But the soft, stolid
+breathing of his horse, as its breath beat past his shoulder, was a
+soothing, soporific sound which his nerves welcomed, yet seemed to
+protest against as tending to lull him into an unalert insecurity. With
+a sudden qualm of reproach he found his head dropping sideways and
+smiting lightly the trunk of the palm. He drew himself up with a quick,
+decisive tautening of his muscles. He would not sleep; his eyelids
+almost ached with the intensity with which he held them apart.</p>
+
+<p>Sleep, like fate, is a tricky jade to defy. It was Perinaud's voice,
+level and stolid, but with a faint note of sarcasm, which aroused him.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur may now sleep in comfort if he will," suggested the sergeant.
+"There is little fear from surprise with such a moon."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer blinked. The round white orb was sending its rays in full flood
+through the broad fans of the palm leaves overhead. It tinged the cork
+trees with silver radiance; it produced an effect of grateful coolness
+in the cinder-dry thickets and powdery earth. It was as if dew had
+fallen, a dew of light. And the shadows of the gorge were of a velvet
+blackness in contrast.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer looked carefully round. It was as Perinaud said. The forest
+spaces were clear; one could trace them almost as distinctly as in the
+daylight. No enemy could steal upon them unseen.</p>
+
+<p>And so it was with a little sigh of content that he laid his head back
+upon his saddle, pulled his cloak more disposedly about him, and
+prepared to give nature freely what during the past three hours she had
+stolen.</p>
+
+<p>With the usual result. Sleep deserted him. He closed his eyes
+resolutely; he breathed with exact precision; he even counted an
+imaginary flock of sheep as they passed sedately between two
+supposititious hurdles. He remained broadly awake, his eyes rebelling
+against their imprisonment till at last he gave up trying to coerce
+them. He searched his pocket, found tobacco and a pipe, and smoked. His
+brain became suddenly active.</p>
+
+<p>He reviewed the circumstances of the last few days. He debated his
+position, appraised his progress. It was typical of his temperament
+equability that he did this; it was part of the dogged resolution with
+which he approached the vital problems of his career. He knew that for
+the first time he had encountered passion, and that it had mastered him.
+He had seen Claire Van Arlen perhaps half a dozen times before he
+realized this, and realized it, too, with a certain ingenuous wonder at
+the thing which had such power over him. But he had made no attempt to
+combat it. He knew that this girl had become for him the pivot of
+existence. As matters had gone, he had scarcely had the opportunity for
+introspection. Passion had gripped him, and now passion's authority had
+gone beyond the limits of question. He set his face unswervingly towards
+his goal. The days of debating an alternative path had gone by.</p>
+
+<p>He sighed. Up the path he had chosen had he made any progress? Yes, one
+great step had been taken. She knew the goal he sought; he had made it
+absolutely plain. He had read repulse in her eyes as she first divined
+it. He had read it again, but tinged with a thrill of curiosity, at his
+second allusion. The third time? There he was beaten. She had seemed to
+fling him a sort of encouragement. Why? What was her intention here? She
+had not softened towards him; instinct told him that. And yet&mdash;and yet.
+He sighed again. There were many barriers in this road he had set out
+upon&mdash;barriers which must be levelled one by one. Dislike, suspicion,
+but not, thank God, apathy. No&mdash;from the first he had interested
+her&mdash;from the moment of their first meeting he had been forced into
+prominence in her regard.</p>
+
+<p>A hand fell lightly upon his shoulder, bringing him back with a start
+from the possibilities of romance to the facts of an everyday African
+world. The most engrossing of these, for the moment, was Daoud's face.</p>
+
+<p>There was a sense of importance in the Moor's aspect, the importance of
+discovery. Aylmer realized this at once.</p>
+
+<p>"You have discovered&mdash;what?" he asked sharply.</p>
+
+<p>Daoud waved his hand with a magnificent and comprehensive gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"All, Sidi," he answered. "The two we seek, with the child, are in an
+encampment of Berber tribesmen within an hour's march."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer scrambled to his feet. He made but little noise as he did so, but
+there was a corresponding movement in the half-dozen recumbent figures
+beside him. Perinaud, raising himself upon his elbow, looked
+thoughtfully at the scout.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my friend?" he asked amiably. "Your researches take us where?"</p>
+
+<p>"Five miles further up the ravine," said Daoud. "It is more than a camp.
+A village of some importance. Our friend who escaped from the broom
+thicket has not arrived there. There was no alertness, no watch kept. By
+the time I left snores were echoing from practically every tent and
+dwelling of mud. We are not expected."</p>
+
+<p>Perinaud nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Bien.</i> The moment of attack then&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is now, Sidi. By the time we reach it the dawn will have come."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer fumbled for his watch. It was true. The hour was between four and
+five. The wan light of the false morning was, indeed, faintly paling the
+east. He looked at Perinaud.</p>
+
+<p>The sergeant nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Short rest for the horses, Monsieur," he said, "but that we cannot
+help. The time is short enough, as it is."</p>
+
+<p>He motioned the waiting figures of the Goumiers into activity. The
+sentries were recalled. A tiny fire was kindled, and coffee made with
+incredible quickness while the saddles were being flung upon the horses'
+backs.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer gulped his portion gratefully, for the dew-brimmed air was chill.
+But within twenty minutes of Daoud's return, the half score of horsemen
+were following him in single file along the river bank.</p>
+
+<p>Progress was slow, the path imperceptible or devious. The light of
+morning was no longer yellow, but alive with the rose red of sunrise as
+they halted, at a gesture from their leader, and gazed between the
+trunks of a grove of palms.</p>
+
+<p>White against the green of crops a dozen houses lined the edge of an
+oval space, which some winter floods of bygone years had hewn deep in
+the surrounding alluvial soil. The forest thickets grew up to the fringe
+of the arable land, divided from it by hedges of cactus. Between the
+house and the river was an encampment of brown, dilapidated tents. The
+land immediately in front of these was bare and open, as if some
+ceaseless traffic had beaten all vegetation down. On an eminence stood a
+lime-washed, dome-topped shrine.</p>
+
+<p>"If possible, we should surround and examine each house or tent in
+silence, and one by one," suggested Daoud.</p>
+
+<p>"A matter of hours," said Perinaud. "No, let our men form rank where
+their rifles command each doorway, and I will see to the summoning of
+the inhabitants. For the moment, softly. Keep your horses off the rock,
+but avoid the thickest of the jungle. Show judgment, my children, show
+judgment!"</p>
+
+<p>He finished with a little oath of surprise. For almost at his horse's
+feet, or, at the furthest, a bare five yards from him, a man had
+suddenly risen from a thicket&mdash;a man clad in a dirty <i>djelab</i>, who
+viewed the sitting horsemen with every sign of amazement and sudden
+panic. In another moment, and with a shrill cry, he had darted through
+the palm grove and was flying across the crop lands, straight towards
+the line of silent tents.</p>
+
+<p>Perinaud struck spurs into his stallion.</p>
+
+<p>"Take him!" he cried, and his voice had a queer note of exasperation as
+he tried to make it vehement and yet hold it below the level of a shout.
+He led the charge which raced across the herbage. Aylmer, carried away
+by the sudden infection of repressed excitement, thundered at his side.
+The dark spot of brown made by the <i>djelab</i> of the fugitive seemed, for
+the moment, to comprehend all that was vital in existence. He must not
+reach the tents, he must not give the alarm. Although he was a matter of
+fifty yards or more behind his quarry, owing to the start the runner had
+gained by the intervening palms, Aylmer began to lean forward in the
+saddle, to thrust out his arm, feel a tenseness, a twitching in his
+fingers as if he already grasped the hood of the garment which rose and
+fell with its owner's every stride.</p>
+
+<p>A yell burst from Perinaud's lips&mdash;a yell of rage and warning!</p>
+
+<p>"A trap!" he cried. "The silos! The silos! Pull wide! Pull wide!"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer heard a crash. A Goumier on his right seemed to have been
+swallowed with his horse into the very earth. He gripped his own rein,
+moved by a sudden and imperfectly comprehended pulse of fear, and
+wrenched at his bridle. His horse fought under the strain, made a
+half-hearted attempt to halt, and was carried by mere impetus another
+fifty yards. There came another crash; another Goumier's horse
+disappeared, while the man, spilled from the saddle, rolled over a dozen
+times across the hardened flat. Perinaud's stallion, its eyes wild, its
+nostrils round with terror, spread out its legs and skated forward to
+the very brink of&mdash;what?</p>
+
+<p>A huge round hole, beneath which was darkness only. Aylmer saw it, saw
+that he himself must reach it, and comprehended as in a flash the
+sergeant's cry.</p>
+
+<p>The silos!</p>
+
+<p>Even his narrow experience of things Moroquin had taught him what the
+word meant. They were the underground grain cellars of the villagers,
+sunk in the earth, unfenced, often coverless, and, as now, open traps
+for the unwary. The thought and the flash of apprehension which it
+kindled added force to the grip with which he tore at the reins.</p>
+
+<p>Too late!</p>
+
+<p>His realization of the hideous fall which was inevitable was swift as a
+lightning flash, and yet at the same time the thing itself seemed to
+arrive with a horrible deliberation. His thews were tense, his knees
+clutched the saddle. And then, and the feeling was as if he watched for
+the culmination of a well-understood and expected movement of familiar
+machinery&mdash;his horse's feet slid grudgingly over the edge. The black
+hole in the earth rose instantly&mdash;rose and sucked him down. There was a
+shock and then night fell&mdash;a night impenetrable.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>ONE SIDE OF A BARGAIN</h3>
+
+
+<p>"It's the pig man," said a childish voice. "The man what lifted me out
+of the way of the boar."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer blinked. Himself in the shadow, he was aware of a figure opposite
+him in the center of a circle of light. He lay, apparently, in a
+circular and unfurnished room, lit by an unglazed skylight alone. The
+figure, which sat cross-legged on a lump which his returning senses
+discovered to be a dead horse, wore the white <i>haik</i> and the bournous of
+a Moor. The hood was drawn back, showing bronzed aquiline features and a
+brown beard, but the man's eyes were blue. Aylmer studied the face with
+a feeling of bewilderment which gradually became irritation. He was
+stunned, but consciousness had so far returned that he knew himself
+stunned, and knew, also, that his brain was confronting a problem which
+his normal powers would have grappled with easily. He ought to be able
+to recognize his visitor; there was familiarity, there was recognition
+in the man's sneering smile. And yet, who was he? Aylmer moved
+restlessly, petulantly. An excruciating pang leaped up through his
+shoulder and made him gasp. The man shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Dislocated, I fear," he said in level English accents. "And the
+collar-bone most certainly fractured."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer's ear served him where his eyes had failed. The voice was
+Landon's. It was his cousin who sat opposite him, smiling evilly from
+the shadow of the <i>haik</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Something touched the wounded shoulder lightly, but not so lightly but
+that Aylmer winced again.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor&mdash;poor!" said the childish voice again commiseratingly. "Is it
+badly hurted? When I fell off my pony they rubbed me wiv butter."</p>
+
+<p>It was his little namesake, swaddled in white flowing garments, who
+stood at his elbow, peering into his face with anxious eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer pulled himself into a sitting position, not without intense pain.
+But the throb of his wounded arm seemed to awake his dulled
+consciousness. He looked from father to son without bewilderment. His
+understanding had fully regained command of the situation.</p>
+
+<p>His first action was typical of the man; he fumbled with his left hand
+at his holster.</p>
+
+<p>Landon laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Empty, my dear John," he said. "Fogs, gales, the menacing hand of
+nature I do not pretend to have my remedy for. But I retain the
+common-sense which deprives my enemy of a weapon, when opportunity is my
+friend."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer was still silent. Landon gave a self-satisfied little nod of the
+head, a little motion which implied the insolence of triumph fully
+enjoyed.</p>
+
+<p>"And by opportunity, please understand that I do not refer to mere
+chance," he went on. "The little <i>ruse de guerre</i> by which you and your
+associates were drawn into this trap was the product of an active brain,
+not mine, I grieve to say. A friend who has seen much of desert
+bickerings did not invent but adapted it. I don't think many of your
+beautiful Goumiers escaped him and his allies."</p>
+
+<p>There was something more than disgust and repulsion in the glance with
+which Aylmer regarded his cousin. It was, perhaps, wonder.</p>
+
+<p>"Libertine&mdash;blackmailer&mdash;spy&mdash;and thief&mdash;you have proved yourself all of
+these within the space of half a dozen years," he said quietly. "And
+now, traitor, and, I suppose, assassin. It puzzles me. Clean living
+isn't so hard, and yet, you have never tried it, never!"</p>
+
+<p>A queer line showed in Landon's cheek, as his lips tightened against
+each other. And then he laughed again&mdash;a harsh, unconvincing little
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Is the first line of attack an appeal to my better nature?" he asked.
+"Omit it, my friend. However good your aim, you cannot reach a target
+which, to be frank, is non-existent. Appeals to my self-interest find me
+alert, but to my conscience, chill as ice. We may chaffer, you and I,
+but on strictly business lines."</p>
+
+<p>He settled himself back upon the dead horse's shoulder, pulled out a
+silver case, and selected a cigarette. He lit it, talking slowly,
+between puffs.</p>
+
+<p>"My apparently unkinsmanlike conduct in offering no attention to your
+wound is easily explained. It is a small matter, involved in far larger
+issues. If you meet my terms, our limited resources in that and other
+matters will be at your service. If not&mdash;" He shrugged his shoulders
+placidly. "Well, I do not suppose a prison governor pays attention to
+the condemned's complaints of his breakfast egg on the morning of
+execution."</p>
+
+<p>He moved, leaning forward at last, his elbows on his knees, his palms
+supporting his chin. And he looked down at Aylmer malignantly.</p>
+
+<p>"And I have you here to make or break as I will," he said. "By God!
+Opportunity doesn't call me twice. I clutch her!"</p>
+
+<p>The child turned with a little start, looking at his father with puzzled
+but not apprehensive eyes. The note of malice in that voice was
+evidently strange to him, and Aylmer, as he understood this fact,
+breathed a tiny sigh of relief. The child, at any rate, did not suffer
+ill-treatment.</p>
+
+<p>Landon saw the motion and his features relaxed into something like
+affection.</p>
+
+<p>He held out his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Come here, my son," he said. "Go and find Muhammed."</p>
+
+<p>As the child ran forward, he caught him deftly and without a pause of
+energy tossed him up and out into the sunlight. Aylmer heard the boy's
+cry of welcome and laugh of delight, as his footsteps pattered over the
+roof of the cellar and were lost. Muhammed, whoever that might be, was
+evidently not far away.</p>
+
+<p>His father settled down upon his seat again.</p>
+
+<p>"That," he said, with an upward jerk of the shoulder towards the opening
+above his head, "that is one of the things I have been robbed of. Also
+my comfort, my credit, my security, my ease. I have had to endure
+unpleasantness. I have had to descend, though as a mental exercise I do
+not count it a descent, to crime. Life, in fact, has been difficult for
+me lately, owing to the action of certain people&mdash;with whom you appear
+to have allied yourself. You and they have to get matters in a different
+perspective. Your efforts in future must be for, not against, me. They
+must, indeed, be directed to effacing unfortunate circumstances in the
+past which are detrimental to my well-being. That must be fully
+understood before we even begin to talk of terms."</p>
+
+<p>He looked up at Aylmer with a sudden quick, speculative flash of the
+eyes. The other met it steadily and equably.</p>
+
+<p>"Have we begun&mdash;to discuss terms?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" Landon snapped the monosyllable with contemptuous emphasis. "No! I
+don't discuss them, let me tell you. I make them!"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer met the announcement with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," he said quietly, and something in his tone seemed to whip Landon's
+restrained spite over the border-line of fury.</p>
+
+<p>"Damn you!" he cried, "do you think I can't and won't humble the lot of
+you; do you think I'm to be robbed of the winning ace now, when I've got
+it in my hand? I tell you there isn't a thing in me you can appeal to.
+I've shunted notions; I'm out for the stuff; I'm in business for myself,
+for me!"</p>
+
+<p>He swayed to and fro upon the carcase, his face livid, his fingers
+unconsciously twining and plaiting the dead animal's mane. His teeth
+flashed, attracting, as it were, the core of the little light which
+reached the gloom&mdash;attracting it to intensify his fierce animal fury.
+For, as he swayed, and swore, the teeth shone behind his red lips like
+the fangs of a cornered wolf.</p>
+
+<p>And then, suddenly, darkly, the emotion was planed from his face. His
+features became mask-like in their imperturbability.</p>
+
+<p>"You had better listen carefully," he said. "First, I keep the boy. That
+goes without saying. I've got him. Secondly, they give me their
+engagement under bond not to molest me in my possession of him if I
+choose to visit America or England, or even if I marry again. Thirdly,
+old man Van Arlen pays me ten thousand pounds&mdash;pounds, mind, not
+dollars&mdash;within a week from now, and on the same date every year.
+Fourthly, you explain away the matter of the book I borrowed from your
+library. Explain it as you like; say I was drunk or insane or any sort
+of lie which suits you best. You'll have to give me your word of honor
+to do your best about that; I'll take it, because I know you believe in
+these shibboleths. Lastly, they're to keep quiet while I have a free
+hand with Despard."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer gave an involuntary start, and Landon snarled&mdash;there is no other
+word for it&mdash;with savage rage.</p>
+
+<p>"By God, they've got to stand by and see me break him! He's hunted me
+through the courts and through the press of two hemispheres. He shall
+have his turn. Not all in a moment, either. A word here and a word
+there. A paragraph or two where they can't well be missed. Then rumors,
+and then a circumstantial story. Rush him into action and then, slowly,
+thoroughly, and perfectly plainly, bowl him out. Eh, that will be the
+gilded roof on the whole thing. Despard down in the mud&mdash;Despard ...
+broken!"</p>
+
+<p>His fingers ceased their wandering. He sat motionless, his eyes staring
+gloatingly into the gloom over Aylmer's head. It was as if he saw
+visions of evil triumph limned upon the walls.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer lay very still. The sense of inertia which had been overpowering
+when consciousness first revived was passing away. His brain was clear.
+He realized that for all practical purposes he was in the hands of a
+madman, or of a man so far enthralled by a very possession of wickedness
+that he might be reckoned insane. There was nothing to do but await
+events.</p>
+
+<p>Landon dropped his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you see?" he asked. "That's your job. To go to them and tell them.
+Do you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I hear your price&mdash;for what?" he asked. "It's a one-sided bargain, so
+far."</p>
+
+<p>"The goods that I have to deliver," said Landon, slowly, "are what I put
+safely out of your way a moment ago. That boy's health, and mental
+and&mdash;moral, too, if you like&mdash;strength. Do you get the notion?"</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the silence remained unbroken. Then Aylmer spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"You devil!" he said slowly. "You incarnate fiend!"</p>
+
+<p>Landon laughed again, with complacent satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"You do get the notion," he said. "Let your mind dwell upon it, give it
+deliberation. I sha'n't kill the boy, oh, not for a long time. I shall
+keep him alive; he'll even enjoy the process. I'll bring him up
+carefully, very carefully. There isn't a form of life as I've seen it
+that he sha'n't be familiar with. You may hunt me from England; you may
+make it hot for me in Europe and America. There are plenty of lively
+resorts in this good old continent of Africa which will amply fulfill my
+purpose. I'll put him through the mill; I'll begin early, too. I sha'n't
+leave much to luck. If by any chance you brought about my death, and I
+credit you with grit enough to attempt it, you'll find the kid
+well-grounded. He shall be his father's son, and a bit more. I hadn't
+the advantages he's going to have."</p>
+
+<p>The flush of anger which had mounted to Aylmer's face was gone now. He
+looked at Landon keenly, indeed, but with more curiosity than wrath.
+His voice was quite controlled.</p>
+
+<p>"And in the alternative?" he asked. "In any case you keep him. What do
+we gain by meeting your terms?"</p>
+
+<p>Landon shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"He has his chance, then, against the World, the Flesh and the Devil
+with the rest of them. I sha'n't pose as a saint before him, but I'll
+see that he behaves himself decently and plays the game. He'll go to
+Eton and Balliol, if he has the sense. I sha'n't send him to
+Sunday-school but he'll attend church on Sundays&mdash;once. I'll choose his
+tailor and put him in the way of things. He'll learn, in fact, how to
+conduct himself as an ordinary English gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"From whom?" he asked quietly.</p>
+
+<p>And then Landon flinched. The eyes which had been bent on his cousin
+with eagerness, with greed alight in them, quivered. He gave a little
+intake of the breath.</p>
+
+<p>"You cursed prig!" he breathed thickly. "You cursed prig!"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"You've been out of it too long, Landon," he said. "For over a year I
+suppose your only familiars have been Bowery ruffians or Soho
+blackmailers. Did you think this could be done? Did you really make
+yourself believe that I was likely to be an easy intermediary for such a
+proposition? And I imagine that you forget that it was entirely for your
+wife's sake that your father-in-law dealt gently with you during your
+married life. There's no need for any restraint in that quarter now."</p>
+
+<p>Landon made a gesture of contempt.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you making threats for that old tame cat?" he sneered.</p>
+
+<p>"He's got claws that will reach out to scratch you at the world's end,
+my amiable cousin. They're made of dollars. And they'll be sharpened
+with American grit. Uncommon unpleasant, you'll find them."</p>
+
+<p>Landon snapped his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"That for his dollars and his grit!" he cried. "It's no good raising
+your bluff on me. I'll see you every time, see you and take it! Leave it
+out; don't waste time over it. Are you going to carry my message to
+them, or are you not?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Aylmer. "You knew perfectly well what my answer was going to
+be, but if it's any satisfaction to you to have it&mdash;No!"</p>
+
+<p>Landon leaned forward.</p>
+
+<p>"I guessed what your high falutin' ideas would answer," he said, "but
+I'm talking to you&mdash;to you about yourself." He pointed to the well-like
+opening above his head. "Do you believe that you could climb out of
+there with a broken collar-bone?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer glanced quickly in the direction of the extended finger.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>Landon nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know what superhuman exertions a man will contrive when he is
+perishing&mdash;of thirst," he said. "But even he couldn't move the slab of
+stone which ten men will drag over that opening, if I bid them. And that
+will be now, if you don't come off your high horse. This isn't a healthy
+place for my friends of the Beni M'Geel. We have to be moving on
+immediately."</p>
+
+<p>A sudden quiver that perhaps was nearly akin to fear pulsed up into
+Aylmer's brain, showed, indeed, in his eyes. The fever of his wound was
+already upon him; his lips were parched, his tongue swollen. To be left
+in that pit&mdash;to be sealed in&mdash;to die?</p>
+
+<p>Landon grinned.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?" he questioned. "Are second thoughts best? Do you begin to
+understand?"</p>
+
+<p>For a moment or two the stillness remained unbroken, and in Aylmer's
+gaze there was little still but wonder&mdash;wonder that things like Landon
+should continue to exist in this prosy work-a-day world of ours.
+Opportunities for unleashing a real lust of cruelty and evil come to few
+of us. We argue therefore that they do not occur. A common error. A
+glance at the pages of half a dozen reports of philanthropic societies
+will refute it, but we, who are not engaged in social reform, are lost
+in amazement at the monsters when we meet them. It was incredulity which
+was in Aylmer's mind, and incredulity Landon imagined to be
+deliberation.</p>
+
+<p>"There are no two ways to it!" he cried sharply. "Don't think that. It's
+yes or no, now and here!"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer made a wearily contemptuous gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't you had your answer?" he said. "It's no; it would be no if I
+had a thousand chances to say it&mdash;no&mdash;no&mdash;no!"</p>
+
+<p>Landon rose. He looked down at the man at his feet malignantly,
+suspiciously. He shouted in Spanish to some unseen listener outside. The
+end of a rope was dropped down through the opening. Methodically Landon
+knotted it about the dead horse's neck and forelegs.</p>
+
+<p>"No, my friend," he said, as if in answer to some unspoken question,
+"you aren't going to exist by munching this dead brute's flesh or
+sucking its blood till help comes, if it comes at all. You are going to
+be left in here with no more company than your own obstinacy, alone."</p>
+
+<p>He shouted again. The rope tautened. Landon seized it, and with a couple
+of energetic jerks swung himself up into the sunshine. And then the
+carcase rose, dragged a little on the floor, and in its turn was hauled
+out of sight. The cellar loomed larger, gloomier, emptier when it was
+gone. There was another dragging sound. Half the light which filtered
+through the opening was eclipsed.</p>
+
+<p>Landon's voice rang hollow in the underground echoes.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it no, still, you fool?" he snarled.</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer.</p>
+
+<p>With a curse, Landon made a significant motion of the hand. The brawny
+Arab shoulders were bent and their thews tightened. The great slab slid
+into its appointed place.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>PERINAUD'S NEWS</h3>
+
+
+<p>A full mile out in the offing <i>The Morning Star</i> swung at her anchorage,
+dipping and swerving lazily over the incoming rush of the Atlantic
+swell. The dawn-light was soft behind the white bastions of the town's
+sea-wall; the harsh glare of the fully risen sun was yet to come. A
+little boat put out from the shore, zigzagging across the wide lake
+which is bounded on the south by the headland and on the north and west
+by the ring of transports, merchantmen, and cuirassés of the French
+Marine. She tacked and came about at short intervals as if those who
+sailed her had need of haste, or at any rate of the distraction of
+attempting speed even if it could not be attained. She sidled, at last,
+towards the yacht's companion ladder.</p>
+
+<p>Claire Van Arlen rose from her deck chair as the boat's sail dropped.
+She walked towards the taffrail and looked down. She had used her
+binoculars upon the little craft ever since its start from the shore,
+and had finally recognized Daoud. His companion, a uniformed man, whose
+long limbs seemed to occupy the whole of the space between stern and
+stem, had his head swathed in bandages.</p>
+
+<p>Daoud was the first to scramble aboard. He stood before her with bent
+shoulders, the picture of dejection.</p>
+
+<p>She breathed a little quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" she asked. "You have brought news&mdash;of what?"</p>
+
+<p>The tall man swung himself off the ladder, drew himself upright, and
+saluted.</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle, I am Sergeant Perinaud, attached to the office of the
+military police here. I attended M. Aylmer during our ride in pursuit of
+the man named Landon, who was escaping with certain desert knaves of the
+Beni M'Geel. We overtook them&mdash;"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus3" id="illus3"></a>
+<img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>"<i>Mademoiselle, I am Sergeant Perinaud</i>"</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>She interrupted with an exclamation of delight.</p>
+
+<p>"You have the boy?" she cried. "You recovered him?"</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Mademoiselle. We were betrayed into an unfortunate ambush. We lost
+five men out of ten in addition to further losses at an earlier date in
+the proceedings. Monsieur le Capitaine has been badly hurt."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her keenly with a sort of speculative curiosity. And Daoud
+frowned. For there was no sign of commiseration in her glance. She
+showed annoyance, almost disgust.</p>
+
+<p>"You had your hands upon these men and they escaped you?" she cried.</p>
+
+<p>"We were within a very little of arresting them, Mademoiselle, but by an
+Arab trick in which I regret to say they showed more intelligence than
+we were capable of divining, they defeated us. I am directed by Major
+d'Hubert to report to you fully on the incident if you desire it."</p>
+
+<p>She made a vehement gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"If!" she cried. "If!"</p>
+
+<p>With an accession of woodenness in his demeanor, the sergeant drew
+himself up yet more stiffly, repeated his salute, and in a few precise
+words gave the story of the pursuit. But, as he described Aylmer's fall,
+it was to be noted that his voice and bearing relaxed. A tinge of the
+dramatic colored his level tones. His eyes&mdash;his hands were called upon
+to emphasize the description of the headlong plunge into the black trap
+of the silo&mdash;indicated the feelings of an onlooker rather than a mere
+reporter, as he described the sealing of the prison mouth. And as she
+listened, she gave a little gasp. In the background Daoud flung his
+colleague a little nod of approval.</p>
+
+<p>"And then?" she asked breathlessly. "And then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was unhorsed, Mademoiselle, and somewhat beaten about the head, as is
+evident. I found shelter in a neighboring patch of mallow, where, after
+a season, I was joined by my friend here. The Beni M'Geel having
+departed, we watched their route as a matter of precaution for a mile or
+two, and then returned. We were unable to deal with the slab upon the
+cellar mouth."</p>
+
+<p>This time his voice had been level enough, but he made his pause
+effective.</p>
+
+<p>She gasped again.</p>
+
+<p>"You left him there?"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mademoiselle, but not without rendering him assistance. Not being
+able to remove the stone, we merely dug another entrance. The outer
+earth was hard and baked, but after pecking off a few inches with our
+knives we fetched water from the river and easily softened it. We
+fashioned a couple of wooden shovels. Thus we dug down into the prison
+in an hour or two. We found the captain delirious."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" she said again, eagerly. "You brought him away?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle forgets that we had no horses. Daoud remained with him. I
+walked to our nearest outpost&mdash;at Ain Djemma&mdash;to fetch assistance."</p>
+
+<p>His tones were absolutely matter of fact, but some instinct of
+comprehension made her look at him yet more keenly and thus note the
+weariness which his voice could hide, but not his drawn features.</p>
+
+<p>"You walked, how far?" she questioned.</p>
+
+<p>"I have no exact idea, Mademoiselle. For some hours. I could not obtain
+a surgeon; there was but one at the post and his hands were full. An
+orderly of the ambulance came with me with a <i>cacolet</i> and a small
+escort of Chasseurs. But we have not dared to remove the captain, whose
+fever has reached a serious height. The orderly advised that I should
+come direct to the town and obtain either medical help, or, if possible,
+one of the <i>Dames de la Croix Rouge</i>. But there is an epidemic of fever
+at the hospital and an influx of wounded from the Tirailleurs' foray of
+four days back. Neither surgeon nor nurse can be spared for one man."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment there was silence again. Perinaud looked at her with a sort
+of questioning apathy, with the detached air of one having done his duty
+and awaiting the decrees of fate. But Daoud moved restlessly, and then
+broke into speech, as if some irresistible impulse moved him.</p>
+
+<p>"I think my master is likely to die, Mademoiselle," he said.</p>
+
+<p>And then he, too, waited, in a sort of queer, hushed expectancy, as if
+his words must result in some definite action.</p>
+
+<p>"We have medical comforts on board," she said quickly. "We will put
+anything we possess at Captain Aylmer's service."</p>
+
+<p>Perinaud nodded again solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>"The dislocated shoulder has been dealt with, Mademoiselle, and the
+broken bone set. The orderly, also, has quinine for the fever, which is
+high. We might be doing right, perhaps, in taking back any other
+remedies which your intelligence can suggest."</p>
+
+<p>His tone was meditative and judicial, and intimated quite distinctly
+that this was a side issue and not the objective of his present mission.
+He continued to stare at her steadily, without any tinge of offence, but
+with a questioning directness which spoke volumes. "I am waiting," it
+seemed to say. "I have given you your cue. Speak your part."</p>
+
+<p>She looked from him to the Moor, read the same message in the latter's
+air of anticipation, and then spoke, desperately.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" she demanded. "You want&mdash;something?"</p>
+
+<p>The man looked not exactly embarrassed but disconcerted, surprised. His
+eyebrows rose a fraction, he flashed a swiftly inquiring glance at the
+Moor. The other nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"The captain's fever and delirium is very great, Mademoiselle," he said
+slowly. "We thought&mdash;" He hesitated. "The captain, in his wanderings,
+used your name frequently."</p>
+
+<p>She understood in a moment. Aylmer, in his fevered unconsciousness,
+had&mdash;what had he done? Placed himself, and her, in a false position?
+These stolid, unimaginative men, at any rate, regarded her as his
+fiancée! She was not eager, vehement, to rush to her lover's side! No
+wonder they showed astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>She stood silent, perturbed, at a loss. And the two impassive faces
+watched her. And again a tiny spasm of fear throbbed through her. Fate
+was fighting for this man, it seemed. Helpless, unconscious, cast away
+in this rat-hole in the wilderness, his plight worked for him where his
+own powers could not. His very helplessness appealed to her. Could she
+refuse the duty which was being plainly forced upon her by the mute
+message of those four watching eyes? Her imagination began to work. She
+saw a gloomy pit, a white face wasted with fever, heard a voice which,
+unconsciously, perhaps, but still appealingly, called upon her name. And
+this was the debonair soldier who had ridden out three days before to
+do&mdash;what? Her bidding, no less. A flush rose to her brow.</p>
+
+<p>"I have not a nurse's training," she assured Perinaud quietly, "but I
+will come with you, if you will wait."</p>
+
+<p>The sergeant saluted.</p>
+
+<p>"At Mademoiselle's service," he said placidly, and then turned towards
+his colleague and sighed, a deep suspiration eloquent of relief.</p>
+
+<p>At the door of the saloon she hesitated. She could see her father at his
+desk, bent over his papers, writing methodically. A sudden irritated
+sense of shyness fell upon her. Surely he, too, could not misunderstand.</p>
+
+<p>He looked round at her entrance. Without preamble she repeated the
+sergeant's report, speaking in level, matter of fact tones. She
+announced her decision to return with Perinaud and his escort.</p>
+
+<p>Her father's first comment was no more than his usual deferential little
+nod. But there was a slightly strained silence between them as she
+finished speaking&mdash;a silence which gave him time for reflection.</p>
+
+<p>"You think your presence necessary, likely to benefit him?" he said
+questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>She shrugged her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"He has been wounded in our service," she said. "These men seem to
+expect much of my nursing&mdash;I who have never nursed. I hardly see a way
+to refuse graciously."</p>
+
+<p>Again her father made his little obeisance of assent.</p>
+
+<p>"I could charge myself with an explanation," he said gravely. "There is
+no reason for you to go against your wishes. I fear there is little
+prospect of our being of real help."</p>
+
+<p>Then a sudden throb of protest surged up in her. The vision of the dark
+cellar and of the fevered lips which called constantly upon her name
+became vivid, more vivid than before. To her own amazement she realized
+that she wanted to go, that the thought of those two horsemen riding out
+into the wild with their message of repulse had become abhorrent to her.
+She felt suddenly pitying, protective. The feminine, indeed, the
+maternal, instinct gripped her.</p>
+
+<p>The blood rose to her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"I should prefer to go," she said quietly.</p>
+
+<p>Van Arlen made a little gesture of finality.</p>
+
+<p>"The sooner, then, the better," he said, and moved briskly towards his
+own cabin, summoning the steward to his councils as he went.</p>
+
+<p>The dusk was falling over them with grateful coolness as, eight hours
+later, they rode over the brink of the gorge and saw below them the
+black spectral shape of camel's-hair tents and the white dwellings of
+the <i>duar</i>. A lantern newly lit twinkled a welcome. A stallion neighed a
+greeting from his pickets as he heard the sound of advancing hoofs, and
+a couple of men in white uniform came to the door of a white-domed hovel
+and stood awaiting them.</p>
+
+<p>One, a dapper, black-moustached little man with the Geneva Cross upon
+his sleeve, hastened to help Miss Van Arlen to alight.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur sleeps, Mademoiselle," he informed her, as she reached the
+ground. "It is a matter of temperatures&mdash;and the subsequent weakness.
+Mademoiselle may have good hope that matters will yet go well."</p>
+
+<p>His smile was reassuring and, in spite of his obvious youth, almost
+paternal. At the tent door he turned and laid his finger upon his lips.
+There must be no feminine want of self-restraint, he implied. The sight
+of one dear to her in his hour of helplessness must not leave her
+unstrung. She must be brave.</p>
+
+<p>She followed with her father into the shadows within.</p>
+
+<p>He lay with his arms outflung. A light coverlet was over him, but the
+damp of perspiration gleamed upon his forehead and neck. He moved
+restlessly, breathing with a panting sound.</p>
+
+<p>"We poise much on Monsieur's recognition of Mademoiselle when he wakes,"
+explained the orderly, and offered a smirk of intelligent sympathy to
+Mademoiselle's father.</p>
+
+<p>She looked down, and a strange sense of unreality in the situation
+seized her. The white, fever-stricken face on the pillow seemed a
+spectre&mdash;a caricature of something familiar. A queer sense of anger, as
+if some well-liked possession had been meddled with and defaced by
+outsiders, rose in her heart. An instinct which she could not explain
+set her kneeling beside the pallet bed, her eyes fixed on its occupant.</p>
+
+<p>Wearily, drowsily, Aylmer opened his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>And then his smile dawned, slowly, incredulously, till the glory of
+assurance had become convincing. He pronounced her name.</p>
+
+<p>In the background, emotional thrills travelled across the orderly's
+foolishly sentimental countenance. He took mental notes of a situation
+which bulked largely and enticingly in a letter to an apple-cheeked
+damsel in far-away Provence a few days later. "Such are the rewards of
+the soldier, my soul," he explained. "Love? Its cords are strong to drag
+its devotees even across this waste wilderness of Africa!" Wherein he
+did one of the most fertile lands upon the habitable globe a vile
+injustice. But your true lover is invariably a poet and girdled with
+merely a poet's limitations, while the apple-cheeked demoiselle's
+romantic sensibilities were quickened to the point of tears.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Van Arlen moved forward to his daughter's side with a suddenly
+instinctive motion. And she understood it. The embarrassment of the
+situation had at once become plain to him; his desire was to clear it,
+he was framing words&mdash;courteous, no doubt, but without any trace of
+sentiment&mdash;to assist her in this. He would do it admirably; his tact was
+beyond question.</p>
+
+<p>And she?</p>
+
+<p>Again she felt a sudden thrill of protest. No, how could they deal
+coldly with this man, now? It would be less than womanly&mdash;would it even
+be common fair play? He was down. Surely till he was up again, the
+indomitable soldier she knew and feared, honor forbade their striking
+even at his self-assurance.</p>
+
+<p>Her hand was laid upon her father's arm, pressing it in gentle
+remonstrance. Then she leaned towards the bed.</p>
+
+<p>"We have come to thank you," she said quietly. "You have suffered much
+for us, too much."</p>
+
+<p>His smile was fading while she spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I failed," he muttered. "I had my hands upon him, and failed."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but you mustn't think us unjust, always," she answered. "What you
+intended&mdash;that is what we look at. You have worked for us ceaselessly.
+And now you suffer for us. You must accept our gratitude for that."</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head slowly, and his gaze wandered past her to Van Arlen's
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a check," he said slowly, "but only a check. He is not going to
+win." His eyes grew suddenly clear and his lips grim. "I shall follow
+him to the end," he said.</p>
+
+<p>The orderly moved forward and rearranged the coverlet. He looked
+significantly at a flush which had risen to Aylmer's cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"It is better that Monsieur should not excite himself," he explained
+amiably. "Mademoiselle is here; matters are going well. Monsieur will
+convalesce all the quicker if he avoids emotion."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer pushed at the rearranged coverlet with a gesture of irritation.
+He drew himself into a sitting posture.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't think that I have flung up the sponge!" he cried. "Before, before
+this weakness came over me I arranged for the future. Daoud has seen to
+that; he has put matters in train. Landon will be watched&mdash;if necessary,
+followed. And when I am up again&mdash;" he smiled savagely&mdash;"when I take the
+trail for the second time, he will pay in full, as I promised he
+should."</p>
+
+<p>And his voice rang firm as he caught sight of the Moor silhouetted
+against the evening light at the tent door.</p>
+
+<p>"That is so?" he demanded. "You have seen to this among your friends?"</p>
+
+<p>Daoud came forward a couple of respectful paces.</p>
+
+<p>"Be assured, Sidi," he said, "that this man will not move a yard but I
+shall have due knowledge of it, in time. He cannot leave North Africa,
+and I be ignorant of it. Our hands may lag, but they will grip him at
+the last."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer gave a little sigh of satisfaction and lay back. And his eyes
+rose to Van Arlen's half appealingly, half defiantly.</p>
+
+<p>"You see?" he said. "At any rate, I am doing&mdash;my best."</p>
+
+<p>The other bowed, but not his automatic, courteous little bow with which
+he punctuated his everyday conversation. There was a moisture in his
+eyes. He leaned forward and took the hand which moved restlessly across
+the coverlet.</p>
+
+<p>"If I had had a son," he said, "he could have done no more. Take my
+thanks, Captain Aylmer, for all that you are and have been; take them in
+full."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer gave a little nod of content.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take them," he smiled, "for what I have been to you, and that is
+less than nothing. But for what I am going to be&mdash;I'll earn them for
+that, earn them!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>AT MELILLA</h3>
+
+
+<p>About the aspect of the port of Melilla there is only one thing wholly
+admirable. That is the curving bay which sweeps eastward from the town
+towards the frontier blockhouse. This last is an eyesore; the untethered
+camels which pasture in herds beside it have little attractiveness; the
+wide plateau which stretches up to the distant hills is desolate and
+often arid. But the bay is a perpetual delight. Curved like a scimitar,
+it shines in the sunlight as a tempered blade shines, ringed by white
+tresses of foam, banked by its parapets of sand.</p>
+
+<p>Two men sat in the shadow cast by a stranded boat and watched half a
+dozen Moors and Spaniards who bent their shoulders and swelled out their
+muscles to haul at a couple of ropes. The ropes slanted down to and were
+lost in the rush of the breakers. Those who dragged at them panted, the
+perspiration raining off their faces. The men who sat and watched seemed
+to find a whet to the enjoyment of their siesta in reviewing so much
+energy. One of them sighed&mdash;a contented little sigh, drew a cigarette
+from the breast of his <i>djelab</i>, lit it, and began to smoke with stolid
+satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>A child who was sitting between the two rose suddenly and ran down the
+sand. The men at the ropes had come to a halt. They stood gasping,
+wiping their faces. Impulsively the child laid his little hands upon the
+rope and stood in an attitude of tension, ready to use his tiny
+strength when operations were resumed. The men welcomed him with a
+glance of good-humored toleration.</p>
+
+<p>The cigarette smoker laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"The restlessness of youth, Sidi. Repose? They have no knowledge of the
+meaning of the word, these children. Now I? The last three weeks have
+brimmed with such toil that I could sit here and contentedly drowse a
+week, a month, nay, a whole year, if Allah willed."</p>
+
+<p>The other nodded and stretched his limbs. The movement expressed the
+lethargy which is earned by fatigue.</p>
+
+<p>"To-night we shall eat real food," he murmured. "We shall sleep in beds
+of sorts. We can even be amused, if we find the <i>cafés chantants</i> which
+attract these poor devils of Andalusian conscripts amusing. It's all a
+matter of contrasts&mdash;life. After the experiences we have endured among
+our friends the M'Geel, this doghole appears alluring. This!"</p>
+
+<p>He waved his hand with a significant gesture towards the town, in which
+the mean houses appear to hustle the citadel and the citadel the houses,
+without either the one or the other gaining advantage.</p>
+
+<p>The smoker blew out a cloud and spat towards the flagstaff which
+dominates the sea bastion.</p>
+
+<p>"May Allah relegate it and its inhabitants shortly to the Abyss!" he
+aspired devoutly. "Is it permitted to ask how long, Sidi, you purpose
+using its hospitalities?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is always permitted to ask, my friend. The answer is another matter.
+Bluntly, till the Gibraltar boat arrives."</p>
+
+<p>The other lifted his shoulders into a tiny shrug.</p>
+
+<p>"For the Sidi Jan this is a place not to be recommended. There is a
+smell, do you notice, especially at night&mdash;murk which rises from the
+fort ditch. And the vermin! His little skin is pitted with them!"</p>
+
+<p>Landon moved irritably. He looked at his son. The men at the ropes were
+hauling again by now, and the small back was bent and the little arms
+tautened with efforts to emulate them. The first few meshes of a laden
+net appeared above the surface of the breakers.</p>
+
+<p>Little John gave a squeal of delight, promptly deserted the toilers, and
+capered joyously down the beach. Scales began to shine silvern in the
+sun as the tangle of the nets rose slowly, but higher and yet higher.
+His voice rose in shrill outcry; he clapped his hands.</p>
+
+<p>As the great bag of the net was hauled little by little up the shelving
+beach, he flung himself into the hurtle round the wriggling catch. The
+mackerel were there in their hundreds&mdash;in their thousands. He tripped
+and fell into the center of the heap of fishes, wriggling as they
+wriggled, and to little more purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Muhammed rose, paced slowly forward, and plucked him into safety. But
+the child met his good offices with scorn.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish to help; I wish to gather them up!" he cried petulantly. "I am
+going to be a fisherman. I shall take the yacht to the fishing grounds
+and catch millions&mdash;millions!"</p>
+
+<p>"There must be a catching of a yacht first," said Muhammed, amiably.
+"Where wilt thou obtain it, little lord?"</p>
+
+<p>Little John Aylmer turned puzzled eyes up to his questioner. Then he
+wheeled and pointed eastward towards the anchorage below the headland.</p>
+
+<p>"It is there!" he explained. "Did he," he pointed towards his father,
+who still lay comfortably reclined in the shadow of the boat, "not send
+for it?"</p>
+
+<p>Muhammed's eyes followed the direction of the child's hand. He stared,
+gave a sudden startled exclamation, and stared again, incredulously. The
+next moment he was back at his employer's side, twitching excitedly at
+the folds of his bournous.</p>
+
+<p>"Sidi&mdash;Sidi!" he exclaimed. "While we drowse we are betrayed. Look!
+Look!"</p>
+
+<p>Landon scrambled to his feet and saw what the timbers of the shadowing
+boat had hidden before. A white vessel, drifting slowly in from the
+headland abreast the market quay. As he watched, a white spout of foam
+and the rattle of the hawse-pipes told that the anchor had been dropped.</p>
+
+<p>She rounded to, the American flag waving lazily from her stern, the
+burgee of the New York Yacht Club from her peak. They could not read her
+name across two miles of water, but they did not need to. It was <i>The
+Morning Star</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Landon went white beneath his tan. He swore.</p>
+
+<p>"We have been here three days&mdash;three days, by God! Not a soul in the
+place knows me or knows that I am not what I profess to be&mdash;a Moor from
+El Dibh. And yet&mdash;this! It can't be a coincidence. They know&mdash;somehow!"</p>
+
+<p>He looked at Muhammed in sudden fierce suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>"That infernal Jew of yours has sold us!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>The Moor made a tolerant gesture, the sort of motion a nurse offers a
+wilful child.</p>
+
+<p>"Sidi! You do not understand. A Jew to sell me! Not this side of the
+Mediterranean. It means death! Yakoob knows it; it is knowledge that he
+has sucked in with his mother's milk, chewed with his daily bread, seen
+written in letters of blood in a score of towns between this and
+Mequinez. No, Yakoob Ihudi is not in this business. Some other is the
+instrument of&mdash;fate!"</p>
+
+<p>He stooped, lifted little John carefully in his arms, and nodded towards
+the town gate.</p>
+
+<p>"We must use haste, Sidi," he said calmly, avoiding the protests the
+child was making with his closed fists. "Show wisdom, little lord. Why
+do you not wish to return to the town, wherein are special delights for
+the eye in the booths of the market-place?"</p>
+
+<p>Landon hesitated. Then he joined the Moor, running. And the other was
+covering the ground with huge strides which forced his companion to
+continue the run to keep pace with him. He panted out a question.</p>
+
+<p>"My plan, Sidi?" returned the Moor. "It lies in the hands of Allah. Here
+when inquiry begins to be made, we are the mark of a hundred eyes. In
+Yakoob's hovel a means of escape may be found."</p>
+
+<p>The two reached the dusty road which leads from the drill ground,
+followed it into the shadows of the town gate, mounted the steep on
+which the citadel stands, and gained a row of squalid wooden hovels
+which fringed the rampart above the fort ditch. Into one of these they
+disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>A man looked up as they entered, a dark-skinned, low-browed Israelite,
+who greeted them with an obsequiously furtive air. He sat cross-legged
+upon a turned-up chest and plied his needle upon an exceedingly ragged
+pair of trousers. A heap of other garments lay at his elbow. His trade
+was evidently that of mending tailor.</p>
+
+<p>"This deposit for contraband of which you spoke last night?" asked
+Muhammed, without preamble. "Where is it?"</p>
+
+<p>The look of furtive expectancy in the tailor's eyes became active alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you fear?" he asked shrilly. "A search? There are fifteen
+thousand cartridges awaiting transport."</p>
+
+<p>"The search will not be for those, but for these," said the Moor,
+pointing to Landon and his son. "And there is as great a ruin attached
+to the finding of the one as the other. You must prevent that."</p>
+
+<p>The Jew rose quickly and barred the door. With alert movements he
+gathered up the smoking ashes from the hearth and emptied them into a
+shallow pan. He covered his hand with a cloth, seized the pothook which
+hung from the entrance of the chimney, and moved it laboriously aside.
+As he did so the hearthstone moved slowly downwards as if on a hinge. A
+flight of steps led into the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>Muhammed indicated the opening with a shrug.</p>
+
+<p>"The best we can do, Sidi," he deprecated. "Till matters adjust
+themselves you must keep company with Yakoob's contraband."</p>
+
+<p>Landon shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Air?" he questioned laconically. "It is supplied&mdash;how?"</p>
+
+<p>Muhammed passed on the question. The Jew pointed to the bosom of his
+bournous, which rose and fell in the draught which rose from below.</p>
+
+<p>"There are innumerable crevices which open through the wall of the fort
+ditch," he said. "For this reason the Sidi must not use a light&mdash;at
+night."</p>
+
+<p>Landon shrugged his shoulders pessimistically, and took his son by the
+hand. "Come, my boy," he said. "We are going to play that childhood's
+favorite and most successful comedy&mdash;the Robbers in the Cave. You and I
+are to be the leaders of the gang."</p>
+
+<p>Little John peered doubtfully into the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"And Muhammed?" he asked, looking at the Moor with expectant, trusting
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>There was a queer intensity in the Moor's glance as he bent over the
+small figure hesitating at the head of the steps. His smile was kindly
+and reassuring.</p>
+
+<p>"I am the robber who goes abroad, prowling to find wicked rich men who
+deserve robbing," he said. "I return shortly, little lord. Have no
+fear."</p>
+
+<p>Little John nodded gravely and took his father's hand. The two paced
+solemnly down into the cellar. The hearthstone was replaced, the cinders
+set smoking upon it again. With a sigh Yakoob took up another deplorable
+pair of trousers and bit off a length of thread. Muhammed passed out
+into the street.</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes later he stood on the quayside, watching the motor launch
+which slid out of the shadow cast on the still waters by <i>The Morning
+Star</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Three figures sat upon the cushions at the stern, and Muhammed, as he
+watched them from under the hood of his <i>haik</i>, examined one of them
+with startled intensity. Miss Van Arlen he recognized. Aylmer, whose
+face was partially disguised by bandages, he debated over for a moment.
+But this third? This gray-clad elder? This was not the owner of <i>The
+Morning Star</i>. It was&mdash;whom?</p>
+
+<p>Surprise as much as relief erased the wrinkles from the watcher's face
+as the unknown stepped ashore, turned to assist his companion, and
+disclosed the features of the Moor's former employer, Mr. Miller.</p>
+
+<p>Muhammed emphasized his amazement with an oath. "One God!" he swore, and
+for a moment hesitated. Then, as the gray-clad man strolled past him,
+talking, the Moor pushed back the <i>haik</i> which shadowed his face and met
+the other's glance squarely.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Miller made no sign.</p>
+
+<p>Muhammed dropped back into the shadow of the quayside booths, and
+sauntered carelessly up the citadel ramp. The three preceded him. At the
+top of the ramp a causeway leads to the drawbridge which spans the fort
+ditch. Mr. Miller had apparently eyes for nothing but his fair
+companion. He failed to notice, at any rate, the dilapidated state of
+the iron rails which fence the bridge. The dust cloak he was carrying
+caught in a jagged piece of iron and was most unfortunately torn. A
+sudden appreciative gleam burned in Muhammed's eyes as he noted the
+incident. The <i>haik</i> hood concealed a smile.</p>
+
+<p>He could not hear, but he could see the expressive pantomime which was
+accompanying Mr. Miller's apologies. He motioned his companions forward
+towards the bridge and the dark entrance through the casemate into the
+citadel. As for himself, his finger explained, he would return to the
+town and get the damage repaired. After a minute's discussion, matters
+followed the course indicated. Aylmer and Miss Van Arlen passed on&mdash;to
+seek the government offices, as Muhammed told himself, to interview the
+head, no doubt, of the military police.</p>
+
+<p>The Moor slid forward deferentially as the gray figure turned.</p>
+
+<p>"I can direct the Sidi to a <i>sastre</i> of incredible skill," he explained.
+"The Sidi has no need to return to the town if he desires such an one.
+He is to be found within a hundred paces, if the Sidi so will."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Miller made an affable gesture of acquiescence.</p>
+
+<p>"You are certainly quick to seize a business opportunity, my friend," he
+said amiably. "Lead on."</p>
+
+<p>Two minutes later the two stood behind Yakoob's well-barred door, and
+the hearthstone had been raised. Landon offered his visitor a tribute of
+surprise tinged with humor.</p>
+
+<p>"I understood, my friend," he said, as he took the other's hand, "that
+the mail came in from Gibraltar to-morrow. For you, it seems, the age of
+miracles is not past?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope I am an alert servant of opportunity," said Miller. "I got your
+letter yesterday morning."</p>
+
+<p>"That does not entirely explain your presence in Melilla to-day."</p>
+
+<p>Miller nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Your father-in-law has been anchored in Gibraltar Bay for the last
+fortnight. He has had information of your movements, my friend&mdash;good
+information, and I have not been able to determine the source of it. I
+made it my business to get introduced to him at the house of mutual
+friends. A humble client of mine, a ship's chandler, acquainted me with
+the fact that <i>The Morning Star's</i> anchor and steam were being raised,
+and with the name of her port of destination. A couple of good boatmen
+and a little tact did the rest. I told Mr. Van Arlen that I had an
+urgent business necessity to visit these possessions of the King of
+Spain. Result&mdash;a warm invitation to anticipate the mail boat by a day."</p>
+
+<p>"Excellent!" commended Landon. "And the business necessity? You have
+brought the means of relieving it?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Miller dilated his nostrils. Perhaps the reek of the fort ditch
+reached him. Very carefully and methodically he lit a cigarette.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;and no," he answered at last, and with deliberation. "I have money
+with me, my dear Lord Landon. But my employers give me no commission to
+apply it to&mdash;charity."</p>
+
+<p>Landon's eyes grew suddenly ominous.</p>
+
+<p>"The price of that book was to be five hundred pounds," he said. "I have
+received one hundred so far."</p>
+
+<p>Miller made a gesture of assent.</p>
+
+<p>"You obtained for me a certain book. Subsequent investigations proved it
+to be a mere dummy&mdash;a book made, in fact, to be stolen. You remain in my
+debt to the extent of that score of five-pound notes which I gave you."</p>
+
+<p>Landon laughed a dry little laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I concede that I shall remain in your debt&mdash;permanently. The
+bungling is yours, not mine. I demand the balance of my fee. For
+suppose, my dear Miller, that I gave your game in Gibraltar away?"</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose you did," said Miller, placidly. "It would be a question of
+your word against mine, would it not?"</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing sneering in his tone, but its bald self-assurance
+seemed to whip Landon's temper into fury. He swore wickedly.</p>
+
+<p>Miller watched him as the weasel might be expected to watch the trapped
+rat. And the dark, unpleasant little room had, indeed, many of the
+attributes of a cage.</p>
+
+<p>And then there was an energetic gesture from the gray-clad arm.</p>
+
+<p>"You bungled the matter&mdash;not in stealing the wrong book," said Miller,
+"but in the manner of your escape. It was then that you lost your value
+to my employers. You are liable to be arrested in any of the British
+dominions. Till that matter is settled, you are a weapon without an
+edge, for us. That error must be repaired."</p>
+
+<p>Landon stared up at him curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"How?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Miller made a significant gesture towards the child. There was no
+intention of menace in it, but the child shrank back, turning, not
+towards his father, but with a sudden instinctive outstretching of his
+hand to Muhammed. The Moor grasped the little fingers silently and
+smiled&mdash;a smile which faded as he turned his keen, watchful eyes again
+upon the visitor.</p>
+
+<p>"You must renounce your detention of your son," said Miller. "You must
+bargain with his grandfather. Your price must be a certain competency,
+if you will, but above all the right to return unquestioned into your
+proper place in society. In this way alone can you continue to be of
+use&mdash;to me."</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence. Landon, still a-squat upon the floor, his elbow on
+his knee, the heel of his fist supporting his hand, stared up at his
+mentor with impassive eyes. In the shadow on his right Muhammed stood,
+still holding the child's hand, his glance hovering over Miller with a
+speculation which was almost distrust. Behind him the tailor stitched
+apathetically at his dilapidated wares.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Landon turned to the Moor.</p>
+
+<p>"You have heard?" he questioned sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard, oh, Sidi."</p>
+
+<p>"And understood?"</p>
+
+<p>The man hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a purpose of surrendering the Sidi Jan?" he murmured, and his
+voice conveyed not so much protest as incredulity.</p>
+
+<p>Landon nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"This month of toil, all our leagues of weariness and pain among the men
+of the M'Geel are things lost, then," went on the Moor impassively. "An
+order has come and we must leap to obey it. The Sidi Jan, too? His voice
+is not to be heard in the matter." He shrugged his shoulders
+apathetically. "Only a child," he added, and touched the golden curls
+with a caressing hand. "Only a bale of merchandise, a thing to be bought
+and sold."</p>
+
+<p>Miller turned and looked at him keenly. The Moor met the glance with a
+droop of the head which spoke eloquently of submission. But a queer
+smile began to harden Landon's lips. He rose slowly to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"A bale of merchandise," he repeated slowly. "And, as I am reminded, we
+toiled to bring it uninjured across the wilds of the Beni M'Geel. Will
+that be reckoned in the value of it?" he asked, and wheeled suddenly
+towards Miller with a savage, cat-like motion. "Will they pay me for my
+sweat and thirst and pain?"</p>
+
+<p>The gray man was silent for a moment. There was something electric in
+the atmosphere, something menacing, something&mdash;and this was perhaps what
+his machine-like mind shrank from most&mdash;something human and passionate.
+These were not among the goods which Mr. Miller sought to purchase.</p>
+
+<p>"You will do your own bargaining," he said, in a level, dispassionate
+tone. "But the child must be delivered. The price? There you are master
+of your own affairs."</p>
+
+<p>For the second time Landon's eyes dwelled on Muhammed's face.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall answer him&mdash;how?" he asked quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Thus!" said the Moor, and flung his arms round Miller's elbows and
+smothered his lips upon his breast, while Landon, laughing a queer,
+excited laugh, snatched up a garment from the dismal heap on the floor,
+tore off a liberal patch, and deftly wound it in gag-wise between the
+prisoner's teeth. Shackled with ragged waist-cloths at ankle and wrist,
+the gray figure was lowered down the steps into the darkness. Muhammed
+spoke rapidly and incisively for the space of a minute to the Jew, who
+listened in impassive silence. Then, with a last commanding gesture, the
+Moor opened the door and went out again alone into the swiftly falling
+dusk.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>MUHAMMED SCORES TWICE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Muhammed's steps were bent away from the town towards the row of
+dilapidated hovels which fringe the bank of sand below the nearer
+blockhouse. And he walked quickly; there was definite purpose and no
+sign of hesitation in his stride. He came to a halt before a dwelling,
+half burrow, half barn, round the entrance of which were clustered half
+a dozen ragged figures.</p>
+
+<p>The Moor's face was dark in the shadow of his <i>haik</i> hood, but he
+appeared to need no introduction. He raised a finger and beckoned. One
+of the lounging figures rose grudgingly and drew aside with him.</p>
+
+<p>"I have it from Yakoob, Signor Luigi, that you leave to-morrow. That
+must be altered. It may be necessary to make a start to-night."</p>
+
+<p>The other raised a dark Italian face towards the Moor and eyed him
+questioningly. He shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"I have no charter from Yakoob," he said. "I return home to Salicudi&mdash;to
+await the sponge-fishing season. I need a holiday; this contraband
+running frets the nerves, do you see? I wish to forget the need of
+having eyes&mdash;and a telescope&mdash;at the back of one's head."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment Muhammed was silent, debating, as it seemed, something in
+which memory or experience gave him no assistance.</p>
+
+<p>"Salicudi?" he questioned.</p>
+
+<p>"In the Lipari group," said the other, laconically. "My home."</p>
+
+<p>"An island?" said the Moor. "And your home? What is it? A house&mdash;a
+hut&mdash;a castle? Give me particulars. My chiefest need would be privacy.
+Can you guarantee it?"</p>
+
+<p>The Italian pondered.</p>
+
+<p>"You flee from&mdash;what?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"From a curiosity which still seems to dog my footsteps," said the Moor,
+drily. "Let it be sufficient for you to know that with three friends I
+desire to vanish from Melilla to-night. We might find it convenient to
+remain temporarily on Salicudi. It depends on your neighbors' thirst for
+information and your capabilities of defeating it."</p>
+
+<p>Signor Luigi gave an expressive and contemptuous wave of the hand.</p>
+
+<p>"On Salicudi are six families&mdash;cousins of mine, all of them. I and my
+brother Sandro alone possess boats or money. The others work for us and
+are fed. We do not encourage them to think; they do not tire their
+magnificent brains except under our direction."</p>
+
+<p>Muhammed nodded appreciatively.</p>
+
+<p>"The priest?" he suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Father Sigismondi serves six islands besides mine," said the smuggler.
+"He visits us by favor of my boat, when Christian offices are in special
+demand. It is a matter I regulate myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Carabineers, tax collectors?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of the former, none; we have leave to cut our own throats. Of the
+latter, one yearly. He is due in about eight months' time."</p>
+
+<p>"Food?"</p>
+
+<p>"Polenta&mdash;fish&mdash;beans; at times of <i>festa</i> a <i>risotto</i> of kid. We have
+goats, and therefore milk."</p>
+
+<p>The Moor nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"I am empowered to offer you for your hospitality for myself and friends
+twenty <i>lire</i> per head per week during our stay on your boat or island,"
+he said slowly.</p>
+
+<p>Luigi scratched his head.</p>
+
+<p>"One hundred <i>lire</i> for the lot?" he temporized. "You have appetites,
+you Moors; that is notorious."</p>
+
+<p>"We have appetites&mdash;for food," agreed Muhammed. "The bill of fare you
+quote contains little that would be dignified as such in my way of
+thinking. You will take eighty <i>lire</i> per week, or lose this trade of
+Yakoob's. Choose quickly."</p>
+
+<p>For the second time the Italian's shoulders rose in a shrug.</p>
+
+<p>"What you will," he said apathetically. "You hold a pistol to my head."</p>
+
+<p>"Try to remember that it remains always loaded," replied the other, and
+turned briskly towards the port. "You had better see to your
+arrangements instantly."</p>
+
+<p>He passed across the sand towards the dirty little Marina which fronts
+the shipping offices and ship-chandlers' booths, leaving his companion
+staring after him with a frown. Then, for the third time, Signor Luigi
+shrugged his shoulders and followed, to enter finally a ship's dingy
+which was tied to the Marina steps. In this he gained a large
+lateen-rigged boat which swung at her moorings in the bay.</p>
+
+<p>The motor launch floated idly on the ripples at the landing stage
+immediately below the citadel. The engineer had come ashore and sat on a
+bench beneath the tarpaulin which had been roughly erected to protect
+some perishable government stores. In the shadow of the Marina booths,
+Muhammed halted and looked thoughtfully at the man and then at the
+launch and finally at the setting sun. The birth of a new and up-lifting
+emotion could be seen working in his expressive eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Bismillah!" he exclaimed softly. "The one! Why not the three!"</p>
+
+<p>He drew himself up; a deep breath escaped him. He slipped around the
+back of the line of booths and reappeared coming as from the citadel.
+And he had the aspect of haste and importance.</p>
+
+<p>He walked straight up to the waiting engineer.</p>
+
+<p>"I bring an order that you do not await your mistress but return for her
+in three hours' time," he said in excellent English.</p>
+
+<p>The man looked up in stolid surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?" he questioned.</p>
+
+<p>"Your mistress has accepted an invitation to dine with the governor,"
+said Muhammed. "You are to return for her at ten o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>The man got up and shook himself lazily as he strolled towards the
+launch.</p>
+
+<p>"Nice hospitable old cock&mdash;what?" he hazarded. "Didn't send me down a
+small bottle of beer and a sandwich, now did he?"</p>
+
+<p>Muhammed shook his head. The man grunted pessimistically, gave a surly
+little nod, and sat down behind the launch's steering wheel. A moment
+later he was grooving a white trail of foam out into the bay.</p>
+
+<p>Muhammed sighed&mdash;a sigh which expressed relief, content, and the
+expansion of a hitherto unleashed excitement. He turned and ran rapidly
+back along the shore. A second visit to the hovels below the blockhouse
+resulted in a conference with another of their deplorably clad
+inhabitants. A taciturn fellow this, of apparently Spanish extraction.
+But the fact that he wore the remains of an extremely dissolute <i>haik</i>
+over a pair of remarkably tattered frieze trousers hinted at a
+cosmopolitanism which was buttressed by his speech. He used the <i>lingua
+franca</i> and moved amid an almost palpable reek of garlic.</p>
+
+<p>After the exchange of a few rapid sentences, he relapsed into silence
+but not into inactivity. He paced solemnly down the sand and motioned
+the Moor to help in the launching of a boat. In it they pulled round the
+sweep of the bay into the inner port and moored themselves in the
+berthing which the motor launch had vacated.</p>
+
+<p>The dusk had now become darkness. Lights shone in the booths; the
+distressing clangor of a gramophone sounded from one <i>albergar</i>, the
+thrumming of a mandolin from another. There was a clink of spurs as half
+a score of artillerymen clattered down the citadel ramp, eager for the
+squalid debaucheries of the port. A <i>guardia civile</i> sauntered along the
+quayside edge and looked down into the waiting boat.</p>
+
+<p>"Profitable evil-doing is surely at a low ebb when I find El Avispa
+trying to make an honest penny," he meditated.</p>
+
+<p>Muhammed's companion turned.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you term me The Wasp, Señor?" he asked with a grin of
+complacence. "Have I been known to sting?"</p>
+
+<p>The <i>guardia</i> made a jerky motion of his thumb in the direction of the
+great convict establishment upon the hill.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, <i>amigo</i>. Your exploits are scheduled up there; have a
+care that I do not need to refer to them. Whom do you await?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Señor and the Señora who landed from the yacht," said the boatmen.
+"They visit the Señor Intendente."</p>
+
+<p>The <i>guardia</i> looked doubtful.</p>
+
+<p>"They landed from a boat, a motor boat," he objected.</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely," agreed the other. "It appears that something affected the
+engine of this, some leak of the jacketing which I do not understand,
+but which I am informed cools the cylinders. The engineer returned while
+he could, enlisting my services to await and explain matters to his
+employer."</p>
+
+<p>"Humph!" grunted the uniformed man. "His choice showed little
+discretion. See to it that you do not disgrace your opportunity. That
+seat is bespattered with fish-oil and scales. Wipe it!" He made a
+commanding gesture towards the offending stain, and walked majestically
+away.</p>
+
+<p>At the far end of the Plaza he was seen to halt and observe two
+newcomers, who appeared leisurely descending the citadel ramp. A
+gold-braided official was in attendance on them, and his gestures were
+rapid and deferential. The <i>guardia civile</i> saluted and spoke. Muhammed,
+watching keenly, gave another sigh. Fate was on his side. The very
+guardians of law and order were unconsciously buttressing his plan. This
+officious <i>guardia civile</i> was already explaining the situation to Miss
+Van Arlen and her companion. The onus of explanation&mdash;and possible
+suspicion&mdash;was thus being lifted from shoulders possibly less capable
+of bearing it. He muttered his satisfaction in a hurried undertone.</p>
+
+<p>The girl and Aylmer advanced towards the quayside, the gesticulating
+official still in attendance. The latter eyed the waiting boat
+disdainfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me demonstrate, Señora," he cried, "that our port can supply
+something less deplorable in the way of shore boats. Let me summon a
+pinnace and crew from the naval arsenal."</p>
+
+<p>Muhammed's heart stood still. But fate smiled on him yet.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Van Arlen protested that the boat would do well enough, that it was
+hardly fair to have kept this man waiting by the instructions of her own
+engineer, as it appeared, and then refuse to engage him. With a smile
+and bow of farewell she took her seat in the stern, while the <i>guardia
+civile</i> muttered stern instructions to the rowers anent their duty. They
+received them in stolid silence. Aylmer took the yoke lines, and amid a
+renewed demonstration of respect from the men of gold braid, the boat
+shot out into the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>A slight mist hung over the water, but the riding lights of the yacht
+were plain enough and Aylmer headed directly for them. He leaned forward
+and asked a question of the man who pulled stroke oar.</p>
+
+<p>"The Señor who came ashore with us?" he queried. "Did you mark him? Did
+he return in the motor boat?"</p>
+
+<p>The man shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not see it," he said laconically. "Have the goodness to steer
+well to the right. Your present course will foul a line of net buoys."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer pulled the line and swerved as directed. And then Claire spoke,
+with a hint of something in her voice which was nearly akin to
+suspicion without exactly attaining it.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Miller frankly puzzles me," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer gave a little nod in the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he agreed. "There is a sense of&mdash;of estrangement about him. He is
+good company, a <i>mondain</i>, intelligent, but not&mdash;human. One feels that
+at every turn."</p>
+
+<p>The girl made a gesture towards the shore.</p>
+
+<p>"What can he have to do in that&mdash;that ash heap?" she asked. "A man who
+poses as a <i>flâneur</i>, a <i>dilettante</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Pottery?" suggested Aylmer. "He collects; I have seen his collections.
+They are sound and in good taste, without being remarkable."</p>
+
+<p>"That is what I think," she acquiesced. "For the life-work of a man they
+are petty. It is mysterious; he is mysterious! Why did he not rejoin us
+this evening at the governor's office as he promised?"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"The ardors of the chase," he hazarded. "He is probably sitting in the
+sanctum of some Jew huckster, chaffering for the least worn of a
+collection of Rabat rugs or old Mequinez steel-work. He will come on
+board to-morrow to explain and bid us farewell, and we shall hear all
+about it."</p>
+
+<p>"About what?" asked the girl enigmatically.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer smiled again.</p>
+
+<p>"About&mdash;what he chooses to tell us," he answered, and jerked the
+yoke-line energetically, as a couple of oval dark objects loomed up on
+the surface just ahead.</p>
+
+<p>There was a swish and a dragging sound, and the dark objects disclosed
+themselves alongside as net buoys. They hung below the gunwale
+persistently; the boat was obviously brought to a standstill.</p>
+
+<p>"In spite of my warning the Señor has fouled the fishing nets," growled
+the boatman.</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary," retorted Aylmer, "your directions carried us straight
+into them. A direct course would have avoided this."</p>
+
+<p>The man shipped his oar and stood up.</p>
+
+<p>"The Señor will permit me to pass him?" he said. "The rudder itself must
+be unshipped to clear us."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer shifted his seat to one side as the man leaned over him. The next
+instant he had cried out&mdash;a choking cry, smothered under the folds of
+the sail which the man had heaped bodily upon his head. His hands were
+grasped and drawn together in the loop of a rope. Lashings were knitted
+about his limbs with almost miraculous rapidity. Stark and inert, he
+felt himself rolled into the bottom of the boat, his rage and horror
+almost suffocating him as he heard the quickly stifled cry which told
+him that his companion was suffering like treatment. And then, for half
+a minute, the rapid rumble of the rowlocks was evidence that the boat
+was being furiously rowed&mdash;whither he could not guess.</p>
+
+<p>There was a shock of wood meeting wood. They had run alongside another
+vessel, or possibly the piles of a landing place. Whispered voices
+joined those of their captors.</p>
+
+<p>He felt himself lifted, borne staggeringly forward a few paces and then
+lowered into arms which gripped him from below. There was the creak of
+reluctant hinges. He was placed not ungently upon a floor of planking.
+The voices whispered again, something was laid beside him, touching him.
+The hinges grated, footsteps passed over a floor or deck above his head.
+And then there was silence.</p>
+
+<p>But out in the bay a few minutes later, the decent stillness of the
+night was torn into tatters of uproar. The voice of the Spanish boatman
+was uplifted in appeals for help to every listening saint in Paradise,
+and to every inhabitant of the Melilla's citadel and port. The sounds
+reached, as they were meant to reach, the quay. Every guardroom was
+emptied; the roisterers surged into the street from a dozen <i>albergars</i>
+and <i>cervecerias</i>. Half a score of boats put out into the night, one
+manned by the naval police leading.</p>
+
+<p>Lament guiding them, within five minutes they reached a point where El
+Avispa clung disconsolately to the keel of his upturned boat, bewailing
+the day of a birth which had developed for him into a life of
+unremitting sorrow. He was dragged into the police boat and ordered to
+explain himself.</p>
+
+<p>It was the fault of the foreign Señor, he deposed. Justice to himself
+compelled him to admit that, though he had every regard for the
+reputation of a cavalier who was now without doubt drowned fathoms deep
+below the very spot on which the rescuing pinnace swam. Being careless,
+or perchance engrossed by the attractions of the Señora who was for
+beauty a very swan, the amateur steersman had precipitated them among
+the mackerel nets. The rudder was fouled. He, Ignacio Baril, sometimes
+called El Avispa, had stood up to pass to the stern and release it. The
+Señora, with entrancing but unfortunate timidity, had risen in her turn,
+and the Señor, gesticulating in argument, had consummated the disaster.
+He had leaned sideways, lost his balance, and caused the boat to lurch
+completely over.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, he himself had put forth the efforts of a Hercules to save, at
+least, the woman. In deference to the memory of his mother, who was
+already among the Saints after a lifetime of charity and benevolence, he
+must bear witness to the fact that her son met this crisis with energy.
+How was he defeated? The truth must out; again it was the foreign
+cavalier. In his panic he had clutched and drawn back from the brink of
+safety the Señora&mdash;alas! to perdition. The would-be rescuer had desisted
+from his efforts only when his overtaxed lungs failed him. In a state of
+semi-unconsciousness, Providence had guided his aimless hand to reach
+and rest upon the keel of his overturned boat. He had been saved, it was
+very true, but it was a question if death itself was not to be
+poignantly preferred to safety coupled with such a burden of grief. His
+days must be clouded to his life's end.</p>
+
+<p>And thereupon the bay echoed with the shouts of a hundred searchers and
+the waters glittered in carnival gaiety below the glare of their lights.
+A couple of hours later one of them halted, as if to rest the rowers, in
+the shadow of the felucca <i>Santa Margarita</i>. From her bows a long,
+cord-lashed package was silently lifted on the larger vessel's deck,
+while three figures scrambled hastily over the gunwale and crept below.
+Then laboriously the clumsy anchor was hauled home, the broad sail
+spread to the western breeze, and Signor Luigi steered a straight course
+into the bosom of the night.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SANTA MARGARITA'S LAZARET</h3>
+
+
+<p>The torment of his tightly lashed limbs, the irk of the gag between his
+teeth, want of air, hunger, thirst&mdash;these had all done their work upon
+Aylmer and, as the hours went by, produced a partial unconsciousness. It
+was not sleep which overpowered him; it was a thing less merciful than
+that. A numbness had seized both his limbs and his brain. He no longer
+felt the cutting pressure of his bonds; he scarcely realized where his
+powerlessness lay. Effort was paralyzed, that was all he understood. It
+was a nightmare; his brain refused to confront reasons; he was sensitive
+only to effects. Thus it was with a shock as if sensibility itself was
+only then returning that he heard the grating sound of hinges, was
+conscious of a gleam of light in the hitherto persistent darkness, felt
+fingers busy at his lips. The gag fell from between them.</p>
+
+<p>With the powers of speech his own again, his senses used them
+instinctively for primitive needs.</p>
+
+<p>"Water!" he muttered hoarsely. "Water!"</p>
+
+<p>"With pleasure, my dear cousin!" said a familiar voice. "Water, food,
+and even, under restrictions, a little liberty. Has that programme
+attractions? Surely&mdash;after what, I fear, has been a monotonous night."</p>
+
+<p>It was Landon who held a guttering lamp in his hand and looked down at
+them complacently&mdash;Landon, debonair, smiling, triumphant.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer's eyes searched past him after the first glance of surprise.
+Touching his feet lay Miss Van Arlen, bound as he had been bound, the
+mark of the gag still grooving her lips and cheek. Beyond her, propped
+against a bulkhead at the end of the narrow oblong lazaret in which they
+all lay, was another figure. Aylmer blinked and frowned in his surprise.
+The face was unfamiliarly pale; the usually apathetic eyes dark with
+repressed emotion. But they both undoubtedly belonged to&mdash;Mr. Miller.</p>
+
+<p>This, then, was the meaning of the opening of their prison door for the
+second time the previous evening; this was the addition to their cargo
+which darkness had concealed from him.</p>
+
+<p>Landon gave a pleasant little laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"An unexpected reunion, is it not?" he suggested. "I have unavoidably
+deprived you of a few luxuries, my dear Miller, but have supplied what
+is far more important&mdash;true friends."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the other was silent; his glance reviewed his surroundings
+with careful intensity; he seemed to prime himself with all available
+information before he dealt with a situation which found him moved,
+indeed, but not by useless loss of temper.</p>
+
+<p>"You will probably pay for this&mdash;highly," he said in his usual level
+tones. "I do not know precisely what you expect to gain, my dear Landon,
+but believe me the price of this exploit will be more than you can
+afford."</p>
+
+<p>Landon made a gesture of protest.</p>
+
+<p>"There will be a price; you are quick to jump to these conclusions," he
+agreed. "But I, dear friend, am the payee."</p>
+
+<p>He nodded, favoring each of them with a glance in turn.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said. "That is the situation; please understand it. I am
+dictating terms, I. I am no longer the hunted, but the hunter. I have
+many debits in my mental ledger. I propose to collect them once and for
+all, in full."</p>
+
+<p>The three regarded him without speaking, and he laughed again, amiably.</p>
+
+<p>"Sister-in-law," he said, "your sex requires my first apologies. You
+must blame the wind, not me, for the discomforts of the night. While we
+remained within earshot of the land or of passing ships, your silence
+was overwhelmingly desirable. This applied to all three of you, and the
+contumacious wind forbore to rise. But the breeze of the last hour has
+given us an offing which frees you of all disabilities. Your bonds, to
+commence with."</p>
+
+<p>He stooped and rapidly unlashed her wrists and ankles. He put out a hand
+to draw her to her feet.</p>
+
+<p>With an uncontrollable gesture of repulsion, she waved it away and rose
+unsteadily, clinging to the bulkhead. She faced him.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you never asked yourself what the end will be, the end of all
+this?" she said suddenly, fiercely. "You win a trick here and there; you
+reckon up the points; you mock your adversaries. Do you never give a
+thought to what the price, the ultimate price, must be?"</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her&mdash;a look that held some curiosity&mdash;a tinge, indeed, of
+admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a little unexpected, my dear Claire," he answered. "Does not
+the more material question of food and drink engross you? Do you really
+wish to discuss abstractions?"</p>
+
+<p>She gave a hopeless little shrug of her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"It is because you are wholly evil, wholly, that you puzzle me. And yet
+you are not unintelligent; you must know, mere experience must teach
+you, there is a price to be paid!"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly." Landon laughed again, a mocking laugh. "I sketched it in
+outline to your&mdash;your lover&mdash;may I have the felicity of calling him
+that?&mdash;when I enjoyed his company in the silo on the road to El Dibh."</p>
+
+<p>The color flamed to her cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"You are insolent!" she said, and again Landon laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Or merely premature?" he asked gaily. "After all, for the moment
+hospitality must engross me and nothing else." He turned and beckoned to
+some one unseen. He received a basket.</p>
+
+<p>"Bread, cheese, wine," he explained. "Will you help yourself while I
+assist my other guests? Or, if they choose, they may assist themselves.
+But I must have your words, my friends, that you will not attempt
+violence or escape if I release your hands."</p>
+
+<p>The two prisoners exchanged glances. Then Miller held out his fettered
+wrists.</p>
+
+<p>"As you will," he said quietly. "Temporarily I give you my parole. I
+retain the right to withdraw it."</p>
+
+<p>Landon nodded and looked at his cousin.</p>
+
+<p>"And you?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer met the look squarely.</p>
+
+<p>"No, to you I will be beholden for nothing," he answered. "I give no
+word; I keep my independence."</p>
+
+<p>Landon shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"You only inconvenience yourself," he said indifferently. "Well, my
+Quixote, stay here then, in the dark, shackled, and alone."</p>
+
+<p>He held back the door, motioning the others into the outer cabin. Miss
+Van Arlen stood still, leaning against the bulkhead.</p>
+
+<p>Landon made another gesture towards the door. "Ladies first," he smiled.
+"While we play at pirates, let us maintain the high standard of
+piratical courtesy."</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"I prefer to stay," she said quietly.</p>
+
+<p>Landon's surprise escaped in an exclamation. And then he laughed&mdash;an
+evil, sneering laugh, which brimmed with insolence and suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;prefer&mdash;to stay?" he repeated, and looked from her to the man who
+lay at his feet. "Was my chance shot so far from the target?" he asked.
+"You will stay with&mdash;whom? Not a lover?"</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes were stormy, but her voice was restrained.</p>
+
+<p>"Even your insolence does not turn me from my duty," she answered.
+"Captain Aylmer has served, and is suffering for, me and mine."</p>
+
+<p>She turned her eyes from his as she spoke and, as if some power outside
+herself compelled her, let them meet the glance which Aylmer flung at
+her from the level of the floor. Through a pregnant moment she read its
+message&mdash;surprise, incredulity, and then hope. These lit fires in it one
+by one, but the last eclipsed all other gleams, and remained.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," he said simply. "But I am not here to add to your
+hardships. I cannot accept the sacrifice."</p>
+
+<p>"The decision is with me," she said quietly, but with determination. "It
+is settled. I remain here, with Captain Aylmer."</p>
+
+<p>Landon was still smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"It has its unconventional side, this decision of yours," he said. "I
+must remind you of that."</p>
+
+<p>"You need remind me of nothing," she answered. "I stay; that is all."</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Not quite all," he objected. "I must, of course, have a promise from
+you that you will not interfere with Captain Aylmer's bonds in any way."</p>
+
+<p>She nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," she said laconically. "I promise."</p>
+
+<p>Still Landon hesitated, his hand upon the door.</p>
+
+<p>"And you?" he said suddenly, looking at his cousin. "You shall give me
+your word not to let her touch you."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer's eyes sparkled with rage.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you not got her word, you <i>dog</i>!" he answered, and there was an
+intonation on the last syllable which seemed to sting even Landon's
+imperturbability. For he made a threatening step forward.</p>
+
+<p>"By God, I'll show you where you are!" he cried. "You dare to give me
+your impudence, here?"</p>
+
+<p>He stood looking down, his breath coming pantingly. His cheeks had
+become curiously patched; he gasped.</p>
+
+<p>Miller's even voice broke across the tension.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain Aylmer refuses any relaxations," he said urbanely. "Why not
+accept the fact?"</p>
+
+<p>Landon swung round.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think I daren't?" he cried menacingly. "Do you think I daren't
+go the whole hog? If I swing him overboard, who's to tell? By the Lord,
+I've a mind for it&mdash;and to make myself safe with the rest of you, too.
+I've a mind, a very good mind, to rid myself of the lot of you!"</p>
+
+<p>"And live afterwards&mdash;on what?" replied Miller very quietly.</p>
+
+<p>There was silence, more than a moment of it. Landon's fingers sought and
+found purchase upon the wood partition. His glance dwelled upon Miller,
+debatingly. Slowly the flush died from his cheek.</p>
+
+<p>And then he laughed again, harshly, unmirthfully, even apologetically,
+so it seemed, but as if the apology were to himself. He motioned Miller
+to the door. He laid the basket upon the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Make the most of it," he said. He hesitated. "And don't count on my&mdash;my
+good-humor&mdash;again." Without a backward look, he placed the lantern on
+the table and banged the door.</p>
+
+<p>Claire made no comment; her whole desire was to dull all sense of
+emotion from the situation. She laid her hand upon the basket; she drew
+out a bottle of wine; she found a tin cup and filled it. She did it all
+with matter-of-factness; she did not spare a glance towards the floor.</p>
+
+<p>And then she knelt beside him, put her arm behind his back, helped him
+to shuffle into an uneasy leaning posture against the bulkhead. She
+brought him the cup.</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head in protest.</p>
+
+<p>"After you," he said determinedly.</p>
+
+<p>Her lips moved to speech, and then she stayed herself. After all was not
+stolid acquiescence best; did not that kill sentiment, and was not
+sentiment the one thing to be dreaded in this situation? She lifted her
+shoulders in an indifferent little shrug and then she drank. He watched
+her quietly. She refilled the cup and held it to his lips. He moved his
+chin in a queer, cramped little nod of acknowledgment and drank in his
+turn. And there was a hint of reluctance in the little sigh with which
+he relinquished the emptied cup.</p>
+
+<p>She refilled it and held it for him again, anticipating his protests
+with the declaration that she herself would have no more, disliked it,
+wished, rather, for food. And so she watched him drink for the second
+time, slowly, swallowing tiny mouthfuls, dwelling on it. A queer sense
+of unreality gripped her as she did so. It was as if she waited on and
+tolerated the foibles of a child. A hundred times she had done as much
+or more for her small nephew, but without this protective sense in the
+doing of it. She realized the fact with a sort of self-inquisition. It
+pleased her to see this man where her help was essential to him. Some
+instinct of the same kind had been awake in her as she nursed and
+watched over him at the silo, but it had died or slept in the
+intervening weeks of ordinary converse at Gibraltar and on the yacht. It
+woke again now; and it had grown unwatched. Why, she asked herself. Why?</p>
+
+<p>And then came the question of food. The basket contained no accessories,
+merely the bare essentials. She had to break the bread and divide the
+cheese with her fingers, bit by bit. And bit by bit she had to place
+each portion between his teeth. She shrank, or she told herself that it
+was shrinking, as her hand brushed his moustache, but was there anything
+truly repellent in this suddenly intimate action? Again self-inquisition
+denied it. Pleasure was in the sensation, not pain.</p>
+
+<p>She rose, at last, when the contents of the basket were finished, and
+placed it on the table. Returning she flicked the crumbs from his
+shoulder and then, with a little sigh, sat down. He looked at her
+gravely, but with a gravity which tells of emotion restrained.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you again," he said. "Thank you for everything, but&mdash;why?"</p>
+
+<p>She gave a little start. Was not this the question that her inner self
+had been dinning in her ears for half an hour? She was humbling herself,
+sacrificing herself even, in the eyes of such as Landon, lowering
+herself to serve this man. Why?</p>
+
+<p>And as she debated she avoided his gaze lest he should read indecision
+in her glance. And yet the answer should have been glib on her lips; she
+had, indeed, already given it to Landon. Duty to a servant suffering in
+her service. But was that all?</p>
+
+<p>"Did you expect me to choose the company of your cousin?" she asked
+slowly. "The very sight of him revolts me. I cannot stand it!"</p>
+
+<p>"You spared me a little of that distaste, at our first meeting," he
+said, and there was the glint of a queer smile beneath his moustache.
+"Have I lived that down?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know now that you are a gentleman," she said simply. "I realize, too,
+that Landon is&mdash;is monstrous, wickedness incarnate, beyond the reach of
+human feeling, completely vile. I think," she hesitated, "I think he
+must have concentrated within himself every evil influence that has
+fallen upon his family, to leave you&mdash;" again she faltered, as if she
+struggled with a compelling power, not as if a word or phrase escaped
+her&mdash;"to leave you&mdash;<i>stainless</i>," she sighed with an inflection that
+seemed to tell of something reluctant in the effort.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he was silent. Then the color flamed to his face; the light
+of incredulity woke in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I start now with every handicap cleared away?" he asked quickly.
+"You see me&mdash;as other men?"</p>
+
+<p>She turned and looked at him. She smiled a little wearily.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said quietly. "Not as other men."</p>
+
+<p>He drew a deep breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Claire," he said very quietly, "a month ago I came first into your
+life. Fate brought me to you, to earn, and then to resent, your
+unexplained hatred. When I understood it, I swore to myself that I would
+make you&mdash;just. That, then, is a task accomplished."</p>
+
+<p>Was this sudden intimate use of her Christian name unconscious or was it
+premeditated? She made no comment; she only bowed her assent.</p>
+
+<p>"That was no personal decision," went on Aylmer. "I did it as a duty&mdash;to
+all who bore my name. The personal factor came afterwards, but so soon
+afterwards that I can scarcely tell you when the one merged in the
+other. I loved you; did you understand that?"</p>
+
+<p>And now it was her turn to flush and wince. But was it wincing? The
+pulse which throbbed through her&mdash;was it truly resentment? A sense of
+sudden bewilderment came over her&mdash;a bewilderment which sought refuge,
+at first, in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;you almost threatened me," she allowed at last, with the ghost of
+a tiny smile. "And I am not accustomed to threats. They&mdash;they made me
+angry."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but you understood!" he cried. "You understood what I sought and
+for what reward?"</p>
+
+<p>There was something masterful, triumphant in his tone which grated on
+her instincts, a reaction to the days when all he said and did grated
+upon her. And it helped her to regain command of herself, to snatch
+herself from the brink to which she was drifting.</p>
+
+<p>"I hoped I misunderstood," she said coolly. "For it was a liberty. At
+the time I considered it an insult."</p>
+
+<p>She did not look at him, but she heard the quick intake of his breath.
+And the sudden pain in his voice smote her with remorse.</p>
+
+<p>"As an insult it is atoned?" he asked. "Does it remain a liberty still?"</p>
+
+<p>She turned her eyes to his, and he looked up to know his opportunity
+there, and could not grasp it. He lay a prisoner at her feet. If he had
+been free, if his arms had been about her, if he had used his man's
+strength and mastery to take and hold her, if opportunity had not mocked
+him, would he have won? Fate knows, but fate was smiling then. And the
+history of man and maid from all ages is with us. Yes, he would have
+won; he would have won.</p>
+
+<p>She gave a tiny gasp, and then the fugitive instinct, the primeval
+resort to flight, was upon her. She sent opportunity packing with her
+reply.</p>
+
+<p>"I am here, by my own choice, with you&mdash;alone," she reminded him. "A
+liberty may become a question of&mdash;circumstance."</p>
+
+<p>He flushed hotly, and again remorse gripped her as she saw the haggard
+lines draw in about his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I can only ask your pardon," he answered. "I ask it, humbly and
+contritely." He gave a wry little smile. "And perhaps circumstance is to
+blame, after all."</p>
+
+<p>Opportunity halted in her flight, hesitated, gave a returning step
+towards beckoning remorse. There was a shuffling sound at the door of
+the lazaret, and opportunity wheeled and fled.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me in!" said a childish voice impatiently. "It's me! It's me! Let
+me in!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl started forward.</p>
+
+<p>"John!" she cried. "Little John! Find the bolt! It's your side of the
+door!"</p>
+
+<p>The shuffling, scrabbling sound continued. An impatient foot kicked the
+panel. And then suddenly, creakingly, the door flew back. The child
+pranced gaily over the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>"I just kicked, so!" he explained, "and it flew in! I did not know there
+was a cupboard here." He gave a shrill little shout of amazement and
+capered towards Aylmer. "It's the pig man!" he cried. "The pig man!"</p>
+
+<p>Claire's arms closed about him and snatched him to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, John&mdash;Little John!" she whispered fiercely. "Aren't you glad to see
+me, <i>me</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>He held his face back from her for an instant and looked at her
+appraisingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said meditatively. "But you aren't come to make me wear clean
+things again? Muhammed doesn't."</p>
+
+<p>And then he wriggled energetically, his eyes on Aylmer.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he hurted?" he asked anxiously. "He was hurted once, last time I saw
+him. Why have they wrapped up his hands?"</p>
+
+<p>A sudden gleam shone on Aylmer's face. He held out the pinioned wrists.</p>
+
+<p>"Could you unknot them, old boy?" he asked quickly. "Would you like to
+try?"</p>
+
+<p>She gave him a glance of comprehension and let the child go. He leaned
+down over Aylmer and his little fingers picked at the cords. He pulled
+at first unavailingly. Aylmer gave low-voiced suggestions, showed which
+knot should be dealt with first. Claire, as she watched, put out a hand
+instinctively to help.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled, but snatched his wrists away.</p>
+
+<p>"You forget," he said quietly.</p>
+
+<p>She drew back.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said. "I forgot," and a flame of unreasoning anger burned in
+her. Landon fought with any weapon he chose to forge&mdash;a lie had ever
+been the easiest to his hand. And they? They must not touch the fringe
+of disloyalty; even with him they had to keep perfect faith. Her
+feminine perceptions revolted; this was too rigid for her woman's mind.
+If she had forgotten, for a moment, her promise, why should he not avail
+himself of the slip, which was hers alone? And then she smiled. Had he
+not gone up in her estimation another step? Yes, and she smiled again;
+how long ago was it since she, who now looked up at him, had from so
+very great a height of condescension and dislike, looked down?</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the child gave a little squeal of triumph.</p>
+
+<p>"There!" he cried. "You pull your hands&mdash;so! Then I pull so!" And
+shouted again, for the lashings which lay upon the parted wrists lay now
+loosely, in loops which dangled on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>And then, as anger had seized upon her, so did fear. She looked at him
+with suddenly apprehensive eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You will do&mdash;what?" she asked tremulously. Her imagination pictured
+half a dozen dangers in as many seconds, all lurking to overwhelm a too
+reckless freedom.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"For the moment I dissemble, and wait," he said, and sat down quietly to
+loop anew the cords about his arms, but in running loops, this
+time&mdash;knots which would give before one well-directed pull.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>MILLER IS STILL IMPERTURBABLE</h3>
+
+
+<p>As the imperturbable Mr. Miller reached the deck of the <i>Santa
+Margarita</i>, he took stock, for the second time within a few minutes, of
+his immediate surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>He saw an exceedingly dirty deck on which the smuts from the galley
+chimney appeared to have become embedded through long years of neglect.
+He smelt the very rich, nourishing odor of spaghetti fried with garlic,
+and sniffed unappreciatively, in spite of his hunger. He heard a couple
+of nasal voices chanting cheerfully, but with an exceedingly labored
+accent, the Bersaglieri quickstep, and made a tiny grimace of protest.
+Around him the panorama of sea was empty of all shipping. Land was out
+of sight.</p>
+
+<p>Muhammed leaned lazily against the tiller and eyed his late employer
+with the stolid apathy which an Oriental alone can make convincing.
+Lounging against the panel of the companion hatch, from which Landon and
+his companion had just emerged, sat the skipper, Signor Luigi, idly
+whittling a stick, and looking up at his passenger with an amiable
+indifference.</p>
+
+<p>Miller, it must be remembered, had just passed a night of great
+discomfort and mental agitation following a most unanticipated shock.
+His nerves&mdash;is it wonderful?&mdash;were at tension. In spite of his own
+imperturbability, on which he set some store, the <i>insouciant</i> aspect of
+his surroundings jarred on him. Was kidnapping, then, such an everyday
+affair that men cooked, and sang, and whittled under his very nose while
+the pirate's gallows very possibly stood awaiting them? He had probably
+never approached petulance more nearly in the course of his well-ordered
+existence.</p>
+
+<p>He turned to Landon with a little shrug.</p>
+
+<p>The other was holding out the half of a yard-long roll of bread, with a
+lump of doubtful-looking cheese.</p>
+
+<p>"I would have suggested a plateful of that spaghetti, my dear Miller,"
+he smiled, "but my watchful eye understood the curl of your nostril.
+This is at least clean."</p>
+
+<p>Miller drew an edge of tarpaulin over a heaped rope, and, after a
+regretful glance at his no longer immaculately gray trousers, sat down.
+He took the bread and cheese and began to eat slowly.</p>
+
+<p>There was something bovine in the manner in which he carefully champed
+each mouthful, something ruminative about the way in which he looked
+around him. But behind this stolid mask of indifference his brain was
+working rapidly. He was putting facts as they appeared to him to the
+test of logic and experience. His mental summing up was rapid. A
+felucca, of Italian register: crew, three men and a boy. Engaged in the
+contraband trade more or less continuously, for the ingeniously
+contrived lazaret between the cabin and the galley showed an attention
+to detail made necessary by continual service. The real mast passed
+through the centre of his prison of the previous night. Yet the half of
+a mast, a sham half, of course, passed through the partition and showed
+in the cabin. Doubtless another half was to be seen likewise in the
+galley. It was a neat idea; there was nothing to indicate to the casual
+glance of a custom's officer that the partition between the two was not
+what it appeared to be. Nothing but actual measurements would discover
+the space which hid the intervening lazaret.</p>
+
+<p>With the tonic of food, his self-reliance was entirely his again. He
+turned to confront Landon after half a dozen mouthfuls, alert to probe
+for the limits of his position. Landon had greatly dared. Did he
+understand how greatly? Miller felt himself restored to a state of
+energy and resolution which would very quickly find out.</p>
+
+<p>"This," he enunciated slowly, "is of the nature of piracy. Do you and
+your underlings realize it?"</p>
+
+<p>Landon was lighting a cigarette. He sucked in a full mouthful of smoke
+and shot it out again before he replied. The act was artificial&mdash;far too
+artificial, Miller told himself&mdash;in its indifference.</p>
+
+<p>"My underlings," he answered, "realize that they are well on the way
+to&mdash;what shall we say&mdash;a modest competency. Beyond that, their very
+finite understandings have not advanced. <i>Domani</i> or <i>mañana</i> are words
+frequent in their vocabularies, but not in relation to results.
+Comfortable procrastination&mdash;that is the whole sense which they
+appreciate in them."</p>
+
+<p>"Your own outlook is sufficiently intelligent to pierce beyond
+to-morrow," said the other, drily.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly!" agreed Landon. "I dwell upon to-morrow, and the day after
+to-morrow, and the day after that! I engage in prescient revels in their
+rosy-tinted hours!"</p>
+
+<p>Miller made a little inarticulate sound which expressed a restrained but
+unequivocal irritation.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we be business-like?" he proposed. "You have entrapped on board
+this boat three people, including myself. What advantage do you expect
+to get out of the situation and, bluntly, how?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are such a rigid man of affairs," complained Landon. "You refuse
+even to eat your breakfast without distractions."</p>
+
+<p>"I find myself in an extraordinary and unfamiliar situation," said
+Miller. "It is obvious that I wish to disentangle myself from it as soon
+as possible. Let me hear and accept or reject your terms. Is there any
+need to be mysterious?"</p>
+
+<p>"None," said Landon, amiably. "But I have not been a man of successful
+<i>coups</i>, so far, my dear friend, and you must not grudge me the
+unaccustomed zests I draw from this one. To clear the situation, I
+purpose holding you all three to ransom."</p>
+
+<p>"Where?"</p>
+
+<p>Landon laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"That you must allow me to consider a trade secret. I intend to retain
+your company and that of my cousin and my sister-in-law till I am richer
+by some forty thousand pounds. There you have the situation in a
+nutshell. I am willing to take the advice of such a finished man of the
+world as yourself on business methods. The end in view I cannot consent
+to vary."</p>
+
+<p>The gray man shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"You are of opinion that money will be paid for me? By whom?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can conceive two sources of supply. The German Government&mdash;pray don't
+allow yourself to be startled&mdash;or, in the last resort, yourself. You are
+not a poor man, unless you have grossly misused your opportunities."</p>
+
+<p>"The German Government has no interests of any kind in my well-being or
+otherwise."</p>
+
+<p>"I must take your word for it," said Landon, politely. "The alternative
+remains by us, literally."</p>
+
+<p>"Meanwhile, what about the laws of&mdash;whatever country you purpose using
+the shore of? We do not, I take it, remain afloat&mdash;a sort of modern
+Vanderdecken?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let me assure you that no laws or lawgivers will be of the slightest
+assistance. My friend Luigi and I propose being a law unto ourselves and
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah."</p>
+
+<p>Miller's tone was reflective and impassive. He had found out one of the
+things he wanted to know. As he suspected, they were being taken to some
+remoteness, probably an island. He digested the information silently.</p>
+
+<p>"You must pardon the want of&mdash;of finish in our arrangements," said
+Landon. "Your capture was entirely unpremeditated; you were a gift from
+the hand of fate. Your suggestion about my child undid you. The boy has
+become the pivot of Muhammed's existence. Queer, don't you think? I have
+never professed to plumb the depths of the Oriental mind."</p>
+
+<p>"And Miss Van Arlen and Aylmer?" questioned Miller. "That was a matter
+of premeditation?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing less than an inspiration, a stroke of genius conceived in a
+moment in Muhammed's brain. Premeditate? How could we premeditate? We
+expected you and you only, or your messenger, by the next day's boat."</p>
+
+<p>Miller nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Van Arlen and her companion are officially drowned," he said. "My
+own disappearance&mdash;how is that accounted for?"</p>
+
+<p>"The matter is now probably engaging the interest of the Melilla
+police. They need distraction; theirs is a gray life," said Landon,
+pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>Again Miller nodded, perhaps unconsciously, and in assent to some
+deduction of his own mind. He kept his meditative air for a second or
+two, shrugged his shoulders again pessimistically, and then made a brisk
+gesture of acquiescence.</p>
+
+<p>"And your terms&mdash;to myself&mdash;are what?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Ten thousand golden sovereigns," said Landon. "Do I hurt your
+self-esteem by my moderation?"</p>
+
+<p>Miller smiled again sombrely.</p>
+
+<p>"That is, of course, preposterous," he said. "I do not possess half the
+sum. I should not pay it, if I did. If the alternative is that you
+support me for the remaining number of my days, I must accept it."</p>
+
+<p>"That would not be the alternative," answered Landon. "In fact, I hope
+to be able to prove to you that an alternative is lacking. But, at the
+same time, I am willing to hear proposals."</p>
+
+<p>"My proposal remains what it was yesterday. Make your peace with your
+wife's family, give up the child. I shall then be able, I have little
+doubt, to put you in the way of earning more than the sum you suggest.
+But that you become a person tolerated in ordinary English society is
+essential."</p>
+
+<p>"I am, in fact, to work laboriously for what is already in my grasp. You
+underrate my business capacity, my dear sir, you really do."</p>
+
+<p>The gray shoulders were shrugged.</p>
+
+<p>"I might possibly allow a payment of a thousand&mdash;let us say&mdash;on account.
+That would suffice to establish you in a decent and plausible position.
+The work, as you call it, would not be difficult. I rather fancy you
+would find it amusing."</p>
+
+<p>"I think you want me badly," said Landon. "I think I must be unique for
+your purposes."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't assume that it is your intelligence which my employers wish to
+buy," said Miller, coolly. "It is your social standing, still something
+of an asset in your caste-ridden land."</p>
+
+<p>"But I refuse to have my intelligence underrated," protested Landon,
+gaily. "I hug it; it tells me many things which you may not suspect. One
+of them is that there is a lever which will displace your
+self-confidence. You are a very bad bearer of&mdash;physical pain."</p>
+
+<p>Very faint was the pulse of the emotion which throbbed through Miller's
+eyes as he turned them towards his companion, but distinct enough for
+Landon to discover and greet with another amiable little laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"It's where blood tells," he said. "I discovered it accidentally; we
+spoke of what D'Amade's men had to undergo as prisoners at the hands of
+the Moors, did we not? I mentioned the eyes gouged out, the fettered
+wounded flung on slow fires, the impaled. You flinched, my dear sir, you
+flinched badly and&mdash;I tried you again. I harked back to like subjects
+more than once; the result satisfied me. And then I began to dwell upon
+your complexion. Is that olive tint from Spain, or was there a near
+forefather in the gorgeous East? Are you of Hindoo blood, my friend&mdash;are
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>Miller's impassive eyes met his, looked deeply within them, and wandered
+vaguely towards the empty spaces of the sea. Landon chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>"By God, I wouldn't stop anywhere, with you, you renegade!" he swore
+with sudden, hot, irrational rancor. "I'd deal with you. Will any one
+stop me? Ask those men&mdash;Mafiaists, every one. Stop me! They'd give me
+tips; they'd mutilate you as they'd mutilate their own domestic animals,
+for fun!"</p>
+
+<p>Miller drew back a couple of paces, not with any show of disgust or
+fear, but with the air of an artist who wishes to regard a finished work
+from a more distant aspect. And he surveyed Landon keenly.</p>
+
+<p>"So I am being threatened?" he said quietly.</p>
+
+<p>Landon grinned wickedly.</p>
+
+<p>"So you're being threatened," he agreed. "Deliberate the matter; give it
+your best attention; and all the while remember that there is nothing
+which will stop me, not a single solitary thing."</p>
+
+<p>"I think you are wrong," said Miller, slowly, and then&mdash;the sound of it
+was bizarre to the last degree between his lips&mdash;he whistled a quaint
+little run, which thrilled and quavered up and down half a dozen bars to
+end upon a long-drawn note.</p>
+
+<p>There was a queer silence. Landon looked at him with a frown which
+implied scarcely apprehension, but what is nearly akin to
+it&mdash;bewilderment. For there was no mistaking the intention with which
+the thing was done. Miller had whistled the tripping little air
+deliberately.</p>
+
+<p>There was a stirring from below. The two hands appeared, and appeared
+with a suddenness which left no room for doubt that they had been
+summoned. The savor of burning spaghetti followed them; the summons had
+been one exacting instant obedience. They had left the frying-pan upon
+the fire. Together with their appearance came the sound from the
+companion of Captain Luigi stumbling to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Fling this man overboard!" said Miller, in level, indifferent tones. He
+pointed to Landon.</p>
+
+<p>Landon gave a shout which brimmed with incredulity as much as fear. His
+hand flew to his breast pocket fumblingly, but too late. Miller's grip
+was on his wrist; Miller's thrust flung him into the skipper's waiting
+arms. As Muhammed relinquished the helm and sprang forward, one of the
+deck hands ducked, tripped him, and rose between his legs&mdash;that deadly
+Mafiaist trick which never fails of its results. The other had closed in
+upon Landon as he struggled in the captain's grip. He assisted to drag
+him relentlessly towards the gunwale.</p>
+
+<p>Landon yelled again. His eyes glared out of the struggle at Miller in a
+very fury of amazement. He bellowed oaths, blasphemies, obscenities
+even, the fruits of instinctive passions and automatic to his wrath. And
+there was something almost devilish in the silence which his two
+assailants kept. They panted a little, by stress of effort, but they
+uttered no other sound. They merely edged their victim nearer and yet
+nearer to the side, forced him against the gunwale, stooped with
+concerted action for one last heave, and then&mdash;fell away from him with a
+little obsequious shrug. For Miller's voice had been heard again.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Basta</i>&mdash;enough!" he had said, his voice still unraised.</p>
+
+<p>Landon lay where their relinquished efforts had left him, huddled
+against the gunwale, and staring up at his surroundings with fierce,
+incredulous eyes. Muhammed was stretched prone beneath his assailant
+who, as he tripped him, had deftly caught the Moor's right wrist and
+twisted it behind his back. He sat on his prisoner now, still holding
+the other's hand, but carelessly and without open concern, perfectly
+aware that the slightest movement from his human pedestal would break
+the delicate bone as pipe-clay breaks&mdash;in one clean snap.</p>
+
+<p>"Have I made myself plain?" asked Miller, equably.</p>
+
+<p>Landon used a moment of complete silence to stare round the deck,
+poising his glance on each of his companions in turn. It rested, at
+last, on Miller's entirely emotionless countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;and damn you!" said Landon, rising sullenly to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>Miller nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"An amateur cannot break into my particular class of business, my dear
+Landon," he said. "There are pitfalls for him at every turn. Membership
+of a dozen organizations is necessary, and they are close corporations;
+even their humbler servants, as you see, find them rigidly exacting."</p>
+
+<p>Landon shrugged his shoulders, produced his cigarette case and
+match-box, stuck a match in his mouth, and drew the cigarette across the
+roughened edge of the box. Miller suffered himself to smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Your nerves are not altogether at their best," he allowed, "but there
+is no need to emphasize the fact. I have no wish to deal harshly with
+you. In fact, half of the scheme you have just outlined to me has my
+approval. I shall not interfere with your desire to receive compensation
+from your father-in-law, but whatever you receive you will regard, if
+you please, as from me, provided by my efforts and to be accounted for
+in full! Is that understood?"</p>
+
+<p>Landon shrugged his shoulders again.</p>
+
+<p>"I welcome your assistance," he said quietly, and put the cigarette to
+its appointed use.</p>
+
+<p>"But <i>my</i> scheme has, in the final event, to be carried out in all its
+details," Miller added. "In your bargain with your relations, complete
+social regeneration and recognition is included."</p>
+
+<p>"But not&mdash;the boy?" said Landon, slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"But not the boy," repeated Miller. "The first, I have satisfied myself,
+cannot be obtained without the surrender of the second. You follow me?"</p>
+
+<p>Landon looked at Muhammed, looked at the deck hand who still sat
+impassive on the Moor's shoulders, looked at Luigi, looked, lastly, at
+Miller.</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"We are in your hands&mdash;literally," he said, and made an amiable gesture
+of assent.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>AYLMER CLIMBS&mdash;AND FALLS</h3>
+
+
+<p>The door of the lazaret was pulled quietly back. The opening showed
+Miller, silhouetted as in a frame, a splash of sunshine which flowed
+down into the outer cabin hanging in a golden halo, as it were, behind
+his remarkably solid looking head. Coming from the full light into the
+darkness&mdash;for the lamp was already flickering to final extinction&mdash;he
+blinked. And there was something unhuman in his aspect as he stood
+there, searching the gloom with his impassive eyes, something not
+altogether stealthy, but yet something with a tinge of menace in it. So,
+no doubt, the hovering night-bird comes to a pause above its victim.</p>
+
+<p>His glance first recognized Miss Van Arlen. He demonstrated the fact by
+a little deferential movement&mdash;a bow which seemed to deprecate, or even
+criticize, the circumstance of her surroundings. He smiled, but with
+slightly raised eyebrows, and as his glance travelled on to meet
+Aylmer's there was a hint of suggestion in it. It was a glance, at any
+rate, which was responsible for the faint flush which rose to the girl's
+cheek and for the hardening of Aylmer's lips. For some reason unknown
+even to himself, the latter's bound arms instinctively moved towards the
+child, who had nestled against his shoulder and had there fallen asleep.</p>
+
+<p>"A scene which would catch a painter's&mdash;or a poet's eye&mdash;" said the
+gray man, meditatively. "We could call it Innocence, could we not?"</p>
+
+<p>Again he looked from one to the other with that questioning, suggestive
+glance which somehow seemed to deprecate, and yet, at the same time,
+imply equivocation. Neither answered him, and he made an energetic
+gesture&mdash;one which relegated trivialities to forgetfulness.</p>
+
+<p>"I must be a source of wonder to you; I am to myself!" he cried. "To
+allow myself to be trapped into such trifling at such a moment! It is
+the artistic temperament; you must address your amazement to it and your
+forgiveness to me. I bring good news, relatively."</p>
+
+<p>Claire rose from her seat on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" she said eagerly. "There is a chance of escape, or, perhaps,
+rescue?"</p>
+
+<p>His eyes became sombre.</p>
+
+<p>"No, my dear young lady," he said. "My optimism has not reached so far,
+as yet. But I have persuaded our captors that Captain Aylmer's detention
+here is not necessary. They do not exact a parole from him, but they
+permit me to loose his lower limbs and to give him the freedom of the
+deck. It is because his release implies your own that this concession
+gives me&mdash;and him&mdash;undoubted pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>He stooped as he finished speaking, and quickly and deftly unlashed the
+cords at Aylmer's ankles and, with a jerk, pulled him to his feet. He
+shrugged his shoulders as he looked at the still tethered hands.</p>
+
+<p>"I fear I am helpless there, my dear fellow," he said. "Complete rights
+of enfranchisement were not allowed me."</p>
+
+<p>Claire parted her lips as if to speak, hesitated, and pressed them
+firmly together again. The shackling of those wrists was a mere blind
+but&mdash;Aylmer forbore to communicate the fact to Miller. Why?</p>
+
+<p>Miller looked at her keenly, inquiringly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" he said. "You want further information? Is that it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have a hundred questions to ask," she smiled. "How did you get this
+concession? Where are we? What are they doing with us? What is our
+destination?"</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged his shoulders again.</p>
+
+<p>"As to the first&mdash;a little tact was all that was necessary, though tact,
+indeed, is too self-laudatory a word. Logic, let us say. I showed him
+how unnecessary it was to antagonize a man with whom he would eventually
+have to chaffer. That was mere common-sense, was it not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Chaffer?" repeated Aylmer. He considered Miller; for an appreciable
+moment he surveyed him silently. "That implies a bargain, and to bargain
+there must be goods to sell. Landon has none which will tempt me."</p>
+
+<p>"Liberty," suggested Miller. "Comfort, and not for yourself alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"With Landon I do not bargain," said Landon's cousin, doggedly. "I have
+set myself to clean our name of the stigmas with which he had bedaubed
+it. There are no terms to be made."</p>
+
+<p>"You sacrifice yourself?" said Miller. He paused. "Have you the right to
+sacrifice others?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Aylmer, quietly. "You and Miss Van Arlen must do exactly what
+seems best for yourselves. That is a deal apart."</p>
+
+<p>Miller shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"No, my dear Captain Aylmer," he answered. "That is exactly what it is
+not. Landon's terms concern us all."</p>
+
+<p>Claire looked at him anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"He has told you them?" she cried. "You are his messenger?"</p>
+
+<p>Miller gave a little bow of acquiescence.</p>
+
+<p>"They are bluntly these," he said. "For you he demands from your father
+the sum of twenty-five thousand pounds. For your nephew, double that
+amount. For myself, I must apologize for placing myself next, but the
+financial sequence necessitates it, ten thousand. For our friend
+here&mdash;nothing, or, to be precise, nothing in cash."</p>
+
+<p>She did not flinch as he mentioned the sums. She merely looked
+contemptuous.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all?" she asked. "He is a common blackmailer?"</p>
+
+<p>Miller shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said. "Unfortunately that is not all."</p>
+
+<p>He looked directly at Aylmer.</p>
+
+<p>"It rests with you," he said suddenly. "He wants from you&mdash;silence. What
+has happened is as if it had never been. You are to allow him to take
+his place unquestioned in the society which befits his rank. He wishes
+to turn a new leaf."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer met the look with blank incredulity, at first. Then his lips
+tightened with determination.</p>
+
+<p>"And you?" he cried. "You are taking him seriously? You are going to
+give him this money?"</p>
+
+<p>Miller's out-turned palms expressed a vague pessimism.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there an alternative?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer laughed harshly.</p>
+
+<p>"Blank refusal: what is his answer to that?"</p>
+
+<p>The dark eyes searched the two expectant faces meditatively. The thin
+prehensile fingers picked at a loose splinter in the bulkhead.</p>
+
+<p>"I think he would find a way," he said slowly. "I think&mdash;in fact he has
+threatened it&mdash;he would&mdash;<i>hurt</i> you!"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer stared at the gray figure, puzzled, frowning. Miller had used a
+new voice for the two last syllables, a voice that shook ever so
+slightly with some concealed emotion. "Hurt you," he reiterated sharply,
+and then darted a quick, bird-like glance at Aylmer&mdash;a look full of
+interrogation.</p>
+
+<p>Claire Van Arlen moved forward with a sudden startled movement.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurt!" she cried. "You mean that he would use torture?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think," said Miller, very slowly, "that he would use anything."</p>
+
+<p>And then Aylmer began to laugh&mdash;loudly, gaily, and quite
+whole-heartedly. Miller's eyebrows proclaimed their owner's
+astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Melodrama!" explained Aylmer, still chuckling. "I remember Landon as a
+small boy, even before his Eton days. He bred these leanings then. He
+wasted his pocket money on 'bloods,' I think they are called&mdash;penny
+exhilarators for youths of tender years, crammed with impossible
+villainies. And now he is going to tie flaming splinters between my
+fingers and squeeze my thumbs in the crack of the door! This is the
+price I am to pay for refusing him social rehabilitation. We cannot
+congratulate him on his sense of humor, we really cannot."</p>
+
+<p>Miller paused over his reply, looked down, looked up, and then bridged a
+moment of hesitation with his usual expedient&mdash;a shrug.</p>
+
+<p>"For the moment I fear he hasn't got one," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly not," agreed Aylmer. He nodded towards the door. "I'll take
+advantage of his concessions to come and see." He gave another little
+confident nod to usher the other two before him. As the child ran
+forward he caught him up with his bound hands and raised him shoulder
+high. Then, stooping, he passed out at Miller's heels on to the deck. He
+was laughing still, laughing up at the boy as the childish fingers
+steadied themselves in his hair.</p>
+
+<p>"You won't be able to do that when they shave it to put the pitch
+plaster on," he cried. "And when they've stretched me on the rack, I
+shall be too tall to carry you out of a cabin. And as for being a pig
+man again, and carrying a spear after the thumbscrews have been applied,
+why, it simply won't bear thinking about!"</p>
+
+<p>As he emerged on deck he looked about him keenly. Muhammed's was the
+first figure which caught his eye. The Moor was sitting on the gunwale
+opposite the companion, looking shoreward. And the shore, to Aylmer's
+surprise, was very near on the starboard bow.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he realized that it was not the mainland which he saw, but an
+archipelago of islands girdled with reefs. Rockbound channels were
+frames to pictures of the dun red African strand half a dozen miles
+away.</p>
+
+<p>He looked aft. The sun was not far from its setting, hanging in a red
+disc above the distant hills of Algeria. The captain was at the tiller.
+Beside him lounged Landon, watching a gray-painted torpedo boat which
+had emerged from the shelter of the islands and was about to pass close
+under their stern. The gold and crimson of the Spanish naval ensign
+floated at her flagstaff.</p>
+
+<p>Landon looked round as he heard the footsteps of the newcomers on the
+deck. He nodded them a greeting without changing his seat, and did it
+with a studied air of contempt.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" he said laconically.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer was silent. His glance traveled over Landon's head to examine the
+war vessel as it passed.</p>
+
+<p>The captain grunted something in an undertone. Landon laughed, and held
+up the first and fourth fingers of his right hand horn-wise.</p>
+
+<p>"The good Luigi advises me to avert the evil eye," he explained. "Does
+that glance of yours threaten us, my affectionate cousin, does it?"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer sat back upon the boom and looked at the other squarely. The
+child scrambled from his shoulder and went back along the deck to stand
+at Muhammed's knee. But the Moor, after a quick, welcoming smile, showed
+no further recognition of his presence. His glance, the glances, indeed,
+of all on board, centered in the meeting of the two who eyed each other
+across the slant of Signor Luigi's tiller.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer made a motion of his head towards Miller.</p>
+
+<p>"You sent this man to bargain with me?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Landon. "I sent him to tell you my terms."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed; he looked Aylmer insolently in the face and laughed again.</p>
+
+<p>"The thick-headedness of you is what amuses me," he said. "The crass
+incapability of understanding your own case. Order, respectability, good
+feeling, as you call it&mdash;these have been propping you all your life. You
+don't understand&mdash;how should you?&mdash;what it is to be in the hands of a
+man who gives not a jot for any one of them." He snapped his fingers.
+"Not that!" he added. "For honor, standing, the esteem of my fellows I
+give nothing&mdash;nothing!"</p>
+
+<p>"And yet chaffer to obtain them," said Aylmer, drily.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't chaffer; I take," said Landon. "I am requiring them as mere
+stage properties necessary to the carrying out of my other purposes.
+Intrinsically they have no value for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Unfortunately for you, you have neither the weapons to win them nor the
+means to buy them," said Aylmer.</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't I?" said Landon, slowly. "Haven't I?" He rose from his seat and
+came a pace or two nearer. "Listen to me, you&mdash;you blazing fool!" he
+snarled. "I have you here to break, as I will. See that you don't goad
+me into doing it, for the mere pleasure of seeing you squirm. You give
+me your promise to accept me, push me forward, vouch for me, in the
+rotten mob you call society, or, by God, you'll be sorry before I've
+done with you!"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer still stared relentlessly into the other's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't a thing that'll touch me&mdash;not a single thing!" he said. "My
+life? Do you think that has a value for me above the hope of clearing
+you from a decent family's path&mdash;into the gutter!"</p>
+
+<p>Landon went white with passion. His fingers worked.</p>
+
+<p>"By the Lord!" he said, and his eyes shot menacing lightnings towards
+Miller, not towards his cousin; "by the Lord, am I to keep my hands off
+him&mdash;after that?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a sort of appeal in the question. There was malignance, there
+was red anger, but there was entreaty, the cry of a slave to a master.
+Claire recognized it; so did Aylmer, with amazement.</p>
+
+<p>They both looked at the gray man.</p>
+
+<p>Miller's gesture was all humility, all dejection.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't exasperate him, Captain Aylmer," he pleaded. "He has weapons; he
+has, indeed!"</p>
+
+<p>Landon laughed malevolently.</p>
+
+<p>"By God, I have!" he cried. "Your thick body and your ox's nerves? You
+can pit them against me, if you like! What about your finer feelings, as
+I suppose you'd call them? What about your honor? And&mdash;what
+about&mdash;<i>hers</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>He shot the question out fiercely, insistently, pointing at Claire.</p>
+
+<p>A sudden dryness coated Aylmer's lips.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" he demanded. He rose, too, towering over Landon from
+the full height of his stature and that, indeed, seemed to have added
+inches to itself since the other spoke.</p>
+
+<p>But Landon, drunk with venom, did not flinch.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at her!" he cried, still pointing. "Look at her! And if you defy
+me, you shall have something more to look at before long! I'll deal with
+her; I'll let these men have their will of her; I'll drag her through
+filth enough&mdash;I'll&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>His voice broke hideously into a shriek of pain. Aylmer had flung off
+the lashings on his wrists and continued the movement, as it were, into
+one direct, smashing blow on Landon's mouth!</p>
+
+<p>And Landon fell as a log falls, stark, inert, his head meeting the
+tiller end in his fall with frightful emphasis. He rolled into the
+scuppers at the captain's feet, bloody, disfigured, unconscious as the
+deck itself.</p>
+
+<p>There was a rush from the two deck hands. Muhammed came flying aft.
+Aylmer dodged, landed his fist on the Moor's temple, evaded the hands
+stretched out for him, and sprang for the rigging. Within the space of
+seconds he was standing upon the great cross spar of the lateen, leaning
+against the mast, and waving his arms in semaphore-wise towards the gray
+stern of the torpedo boat as she slid away against the disc of the
+setting sun.</p>
+
+<p>The captain yelled aloud with fury.</p>
+
+<p>"He is signalling to them!" he screamed. "God's Mother! If they see him
+we're undone!"</p>
+
+<p>A sudden light gleamed in Claire's eyes, a light of hope, of relief
+and&mdash;bright above them all&mdash;admiration. This was a man. Her woman's
+blood quickened to the knowledge that his man's strength had been used
+brutally, splendidly, for her. She cried aloud her encouragement. She
+waved her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Make them see you, make them!" she called. She beat her open hand upon
+the taffrail in her passion.</p>
+
+<p>The gunboat slowed. Half a dozen signal flags rushed up to her peak. The
+white foam of her wake disappeared slowly with the stopping of her
+engines. Captain Luigi cried out again; he addressed invectives to
+things terrestrial and to celestial things apostrophes at a set value in
+candles, using both forms of eloquence impartially to goad his
+hesitating deck hands to pull Aylmer from his eyrie at the risk of their
+lives. The mariners shook their heads.</p>
+
+<p>And then, at the captain's ear, harshly, snippingly, between his teeth,
+Miller spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Let go the halliards!" he hissed. "Let go the halliards!"</p>
+
+<p>And Claire Van Arlen heard.</p>
+
+<p>She cried out to Aylmer warningly, shrill in her despair. He did not
+hear or, perhaps, in the intentness of his task, did not heed. She cried
+out again.</p>
+
+<p>Too late!</p>
+
+<p>The two men flung themselves upon the ropes which held the great lateen
+yard in place, slacked them, payed them out suddenly a couple of yards.
+Aylmer tottered, rocked forward, and then maintained his hand hold upon
+the mast. But this time the men reversed the operation. With a
+tremendous effort they jerked the ropes. The spar leaped upwards!</p>
+
+<p>And Aylmer shot into the air and landed stunningly upon the planking at
+Claire Van Arlen's feet.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>FATE STAYS HER HAND</h3>
+
+
+<p>Rescue, liberty, and, not least, triumph over Landon! These were all
+possibilities, even probabilities, clear to Claire Van Arlen's
+intelligence as she bent over Aylmer&mdash;clear, but undefined. Yet the one
+outstanding, engrossing thought was that her champion had fallen in the
+moment of victory. The blood was flowing from a deep cut on his
+forehead; he was unconscious; the color had ebbed from his very lips. An
+agony of apprehension seized upon her. He was dead! He was dead!</p>
+
+<p>And then&mdash;the pulse of that relief will be quick in her to her dying
+day&mdash;his eyes opened, he stirred. He did more than stir; he made efforts
+to rise.</p>
+
+<p>She held him masterfully; her voice was stern in her command to him to
+lie still. And he looked up at her with an incredulous glance in which
+humor had its part. He smiled&mdash;a puzzled smile. Suddenly remembrance
+came back to him and his bewilderment became anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"The gunboat?" he asked hoarsely. "They saw me, they were slowing down!"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded silently as she looked about her. They had floated within the
+shadow cast by the towering bulk of the island nearest them. The last
+red rim of the sun's disc had passed below the horizon. The dusk was
+gathering. A mile away the gunboat was turning ponderously.</p>
+
+<p>Rapidly she told him what she saw and he nodded a satisfied assent.</p>
+
+<p>"They're done, now," he whispered triumphantly. "We have them in a cleft
+stick!"</p>
+
+<p>But Fate&mdash;listening Fate&mdash;shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>It was Muhammed who had taken command of the situation, Muhammed who
+roared his orders to hoist again the half-lowered sail, to let drift the
+dingy from the stern, to stand by the halliards for a tack. He leaped
+upon the tiller and flung the boat's prow round to point directly for
+the land.</p>
+
+<p>The freshening breeze from the northwest swelled out the great sail as
+the panting sailors swung the yard aslant the mast. The water sang and
+bubbled from the prow. The <i>Santa Margarita</i> leaped landwards like a
+living thing, straight for the cliffs of shadowing stone.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Luigi, completely unnerved by the sudden crisis to which events
+had soared, wailed protests without attempting interference.</p>
+
+<p>"I call you to witness that I said he had the evil eye!" he cried. "I
+call you to witness! Capture or destruction&mdash;there are no two ways to
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>"There is One God and one road to safety for a brave man," answered
+Muhammed, as he leaned his strength upon the helm. "They call it
+courage. Run out the French flag, <i>amigo</i>! They dare not fire on that,
+here, in debatable waters, for all their claim to these islands as
+within the grip of Spain."</p>
+
+<p>A sudden pang of doubt shook Claire. The gunboat was completing its
+turning movement&mdash;slowly&mdash;ah, how slowly! And yet? How could the
+felucca, with no more than a fresh breeze to rely on, hope to evade
+that greyhound of the seas? A spout of gray smoke burst from the gray
+painted sides; the sound of a cannon shot echoed down to them among the
+crags.</p>
+
+<p>Muhammed laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Blank cartridge," he said derisively. "Within five minutes their faces
+will be as blank. Sons of dirt, I spit upon you!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl's apprehension grew. Confidence rang in the Moor's voice. He
+smiled as one who had already triumphed. And still the felucca drove
+shorewards, relentlessly towards the bare face of stone.</p>
+
+<p>But the torpedo boat was gaining speed. The white lift of the foam was
+veiling her bows; she ripped through the waters as a blade rips through
+calico, directly, cleanly, tossing aside the waves. Another few
+minutes&mdash;seven&mdash;six&mdash;perhaps less&mdash;and she must be alongside. And the
+island cliff seemed to overhang them now; the great sail flapped as the
+breeze beat back from the sheer rock against its breadth.</p>
+
+<p>A second time Muhammed roared his orders. The sailors shifted the huge
+spar around the mast, swinging it as on a pivot. The <i>Santa Margarita</i>
+came about, dancingly.</p>
+
+<p>The rush and boil of breaking foam on the seaward bow caught Claire's
+ear. She glanced over the taffrail.</p>
+
+<p>A comber was breaking on a great tooth of black rock within half a
+cable's length of the boat. Not far ahead she saw the white after-spume
+of another&mdash;and beyond that a third&mdash;a fourth&mdash;countless ones. They were
+within a very labyrinth of reefs. And Muhammed, swerving the tiller
+delicately from side to side, steered unshaken, his eyes piercing into
+the swiftly coming gloom, the smile of victory growing round his lips.</p>
+
+<p>She understood, and before she turned her eyes astern knew hope was
+lost. The torpedo boat was slackening speed; the cream of her wake began
+to slide past her sides and swirl round her bow as she slowed, went
+astern, halted on the lips of danger, and then reluctantly turned.</p>
+
+<p>A yell went up from the felucca as the crew saw themselves saved&mdash;a yell
+of defiance.</p>
+
+<p>Again the gray jet of smoke spurted from the gray port, and this time
+the background of purple dusk showed the red tongue of the flame. The
+sound of the report reached them, but not so swiftly as another sound&mdash;a
+nerve-rending menace which shrieked in their very ears, as it seemed,
+and passed, to thunder crashingly against the forehead of the crag. And
+again Muhammed laughed and showed his white teeth, and roared to his
+fellows to swing the yard-arm about as he spun the boat between two
+waiting jaws of rock and sent her bounding out into the open before the
+lash of the favoring breeze. And night fell over them&mdash;for Claire Van
+Arlen the hopeless night of despair.</p>
+
+<p>She looked up to find Miller standing beside her, looking down at
+Aylmer's face with sombre, inquiring eyes. And she realized for the
+first time that in that face the eyes were closed again, the lips
+bloodless, the cheeks sunken. She gave an exclamation; she bent and
+stanched the blood which still flowed from the wounded temple.</p>
+
+<p>Miller picked up a bucket, seized a rope, attached it to the handle, and
+slung it overboard. He placed it, brimmed with water, at her feet. She
+looked up again, eyed him silently and without thanks, dipped her
+handkerchief in the water and laved Aylmer's face. And Miller himself
+remained silent, as if he would force the first comment from her, as if
+he probed for information by mere inertness. Had he been heard? She
+guessed that he was asking himself&mdash;and by force of silence, her&mdash;this
+question.</p>
+
+<p>A sudden instinct not to betray herself gripped her. Aylmer? Was not he
+an example of a like reticence? He had not revealed the fact that his
+hands were free till circumstances had revealed it, with a vengeance.
+She would follow this example and so tell nothing. She pillowed Aylmer's
+head gently upon a coil of rope and stood up.</p>
+
+<p>"The hope of rescue is gone then?" she said quietly. "There is no chance
+of their rounding the island, and encountering us later?"</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged his shoulders doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"They seldom carry search-lights&mdash;craft of that size, in the Spanish
+navy, at any rate. No, Muhammed's seamanship has taken the trick this
+time. Spanish captains do not waste coal lavishly, and what, after all,
+have they to go on. Merely the words 'Help! Prisoners!' It might easily
+have been the vagary of some half-drunken sponge-fisher."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him keenly.</p>
+
+<p>"That was what he signalled?" she said. "You understood that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know the international code," he said simply. He looked down at
+Aylmer again. "His escapade has not improved our position," he added.
+"When Landon comes to himself&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He is not seriously wounded, then?" she cried in quick disappointment.
+"I had hoped&mdash;I had prayed&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What?" he asked, as she hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"That he had been killed," she answered slowly. "Is there any escape
+from the net of villainy in which he has us all entrapped?"</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her silently, and the dawn of a hard smile glimmered about
+his lips. He pointed aft.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you come and look?" he said. "Perhaps I have undervalued your
+prayers. I am no surgeon, but I would wager a larger sum on his reviving
+than I would on the recovery of&mdash;this."</p>
+
+<p>He touched Aylmer with the point of his foot. There was no ungentleness
+in the action, but it seemed instinctive&mdash;the gesture of an autocrat or
+of a dictator, seeing all men under his feet.</p>
+
+<p>She gave a gesture of assent and followed him into the gloom cast by the
+sail upon the stern. Landon lay within a foot of where he had fallen,
+his head pillowed upon a tarpaulin. Muhammed had relinquished the tiller
+to Captain Luigi and was dropping <i>aguardiente</i> between the set lips and
+the color was stealing slowly back into the cheeks which had been as
+pale as Aylmer's own. Landon's eyes opened as Claire reached and stood
+beside him.</p>
+
+<p>They met hers at first without recognition. Then a gleam of feeling
+flashed in them&mdash;a gleam which grew in fierceness as he gazed.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember!" he muttered. He made a feeble effort to rise, which
+Muhammed prevented by the steady pressure of a hand. "By the Lord, he
+shall pay for it&mdash;and you!"</p>
+
+<p>And then, meeting that glance, and stricken by the revulsion from the
+hope which the events of the last few minutes had engendered, Claire
+surrendered to a sense of despair. What could the future hold for her
+except&mdash;the worst? As far as she was concerned, the deal with fate was
+finished and she had lost finally. But even despair could not crush the
+maternal, protective instinct which had sprung into being in the silo of
+El Dibh, which had grown into full flower through the last dark hours in
+the lazaret. She spoke quickly, on the spur of the moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Him you cannot hurt," she answered. "He is escaping you; he is dying."</p>
+
+<p>Landon struggled under Muhammed's restraining hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he?" he cried, looking at Miller. "Is he? He's not going before I
+get my hands on him! For God's sake, man, say he isn't! Say it isn't
+true!"</p>
+
+<p>Miller shrugged his shoulders apathetically.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll do all we can," he temporized.</p>
+
+<p>Landon gnashed his teeth and burst into hysterical weeping.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but I wanted to have my will of him!" he cried. "It's he and all
+the thousands like him that have put me here! The cursed hypocrites! I
+slipped; I went against their code, and they jostled each other to
+trample me when I was down! And I?" He shook his fist weakly into the
+night. "I? I was no worse than the best of them. I was only myself&mdash;the
+natural man&mdash;and they flung me out! And I could have repaid every stab,
+every kick, on him&mdash;on him!"</p>
+
+<p>He writhed and then suddenly steadied himself. Again his eyes focussed
+evilly upon Claire.</p>
+
+<p>"Go to him!" he ordered. "Go to him and do your utmost for him! Bring
+him round and I'll be light with you; I'll save you&mdash;the worst of it.
+Let him slip through your fingers, and by every devil in Hell I'll make
+you pay double, double, and double that!"</p>
+
+<p>She turned from him silently and in turning made a little stagger.
+Miller's hand slipped under her elbow; for an instant she found that he
+was supporting her. She stirred away from him in uncontrollable disgust.</p>
+
+<p>A moment later she had pulled herself together; she murmured a
+disjointed sentence of thanks, and moved away towards the scuppers where
+Aylmer still lay motionless, realizing, as she reached it, that the gray
+man was still at her side. He was looking at her keenly, but with an
+impassive gaze which told her nothing.</p>
+
+<p>She bent her face to the white lips. Faintly, but still distinct, she
+felt the breath pass from them. She rose with a little gesture of
+appeal.</p>
+
+<p>"You must help me," she said. "We must get him below."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he hesitated. Then he passed his arms behind the other's
+shoulders and lifted him. She bent and took his knees. Staggering again
+at first, but with growing steadiness, she helped to half carry, half
+drag him to the companion, into the cabin, to lay him, at last, on the
+floor of the lazaret.</p>
+
+<p>She drew off her jacket and arranged it under his head.</p>
+
+<p>She rose and looked at Miller.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, if they will give me food and water, I will do what I can," she
+said simply. "Quiet is his best chance, absolute quiet."</p>
+
+<p>He gave a little bow of assent.</p>
+
+<p>"We must hope for the best," he answered. "You must rely on me all you
+can; come into Landon's notice as little as possible. I will use my
+influences, such as they are, for the best."</p>
+
+<p>The hot throb of repulsion&mdash;of hate, even&mdash;throbbed up in her, knowing,
+as she knew, that he was false to her, but she kept her face unmoved.
+She nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she answered quietly, "unless&mdash;you think my duty is to let
+him&mdash;die?"</p>
+
+<p>His imperturbable face lost its calm for a moment. He was genuinely
+startled.</p>
+
+<p>"But no!" he cried quickly. "Things are not as bad as that! The threats
+he used? Those were the results of shock, of delirium. I would prevent
+that&mdash;I."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him very steadily.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" she said. "You&mdash;a prisoner, like myself. How?"</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged his shoulders vaguely.</p>
+
+<p>"He is open to reason," he said. "He could not afford it; I could make
+that plain to him, I have every assurance that I could."</p>
+
+<p>He was looking at her searchingly&mdash;frowning, showing dissatisfaction
+with himself for his slip. She was content to let it pass.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," she answered. "You give me hope," and truly enough a wild,
+incredulous hope had just arisen in her heart, for her gaze had been
+still on Aylmer's pallid face at her feet.</p>
+
+<p>The gray man still hesitated and then, with the air of one who has
+probed an enigma the solution of which still escaped him, turned and
+passed into the cabin. She heard his footsteps echo along the deck over
+her head.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer's eyes opened, and then one of them closed again, in a wink!</p>
+
+<p>She laid her finger warningly upon her lips. She bent till her lips
+touched his ear.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew it&mdash;I knew it!" she breathed joyfully. "Ah, but you nearly
+spoilt it all. You smiled&mdash;I saw the beginning of it&mdash;when he made his
+slip, and he might have seen it, too!"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled again.</p>
+
+<p>"The renegade!" he whispered. "I knew it before this last hour; I saw it
+in his face when Landon came here, before. They have some understanding,
+those two. And it was he who betrayed me&mdash;with his suggestion about the
+halliards. I heard him, before they let them go!"</p>
+
+<p>"And I!" she answered. "He is against us; we are alone, against them
+all!"</p>
+
+<p>"Where does his profit come in?" he asked, wonderingly. "What arguments
+has Landon used; how can a man like him be the gainer?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"One has met him&mdash;in Gibraltar&mdash;in society," she said. "But do we know
+anything of him; does any one know?"</p>
+
+<p>He was silent for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, at last. "No one knows. I have heard it spoken of, his
+unknowableness, but no one has supplied a key to the mystery. I think&mdash;I
+think if we win out of this I must set machinery to work in
+Gibraltar&mdash;to find out."</p>
+
+<p>"If!" she repeated sadly. "If!"</p>
+
+<p>His lips set firmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not if," he answered resolutely. "When! Do you believe that men like
+Landon win! You, yourself? Didn't you tell him that he would have to
+pay, eventually. I'm going to present the bill&mdash;I. I know it; I have it
+as a conviction!"</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes glowed down at him. The dead roots of hope began to sprout in
+her heart. The down-hearted, the <i>fainéant</i>? Has any natural woman a use
+for such an one? No! Nature made you the leader, they cry to the male.
+For God's sake, behave as one!</p>
+
+<p>She offered no protest, no comment. She did not question his faith; her
+matter-of-factness only asked for detail.</p>
+
+<p>"Meanwhile?" she questioned. "Meanwhile?"</p>
+
+<p>He made a little grimace.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a gray prospect," he admitted. "I lie here, unconscious. I lie
+physically&mdash;and by implication&mdash;morally. I feign myself as one on the
+lip of extinction. I wait!"</p>
+
+<p>She felt vaguely disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>"You wait&mdash;till when?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Till a very old friend comes by," he answered. "She has seldom failed
+me, and then my own laggardness was at fault. They call her
+Opportunity."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE PRISON</h3>
+
+
+<p>"What is to be the end?" asked Claire, suddenly, wearily. "What is to be
+the end?"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer looked up from his pallet on the floor&mdash;looked at the
+girl&mdash;looked at the walls of bare masonry&mdash;looked at the shaft of
+sunlight which slanted through the barred window. For eight and forty
+hours he had lain there, shamming, shamming, shamming. For three days
+previous to his being brought to that place, he had lain as motionless
+in the lazaret of the <i>Santa Margarita</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Conceive it&mdash;you who walk abroad as you list! Nearly a week of inaction,
+when all the time your blood is coursing healthily in your veins, your
+feet itch for the road, and your wrath, above all, is suffering a
+continual fever for which no remedy is presently available.</p>
+
+<p>The picture, however, had its other side. Could he, in any other
+circumstances, have advanced so far in intimacy with his companion?
+When, in the ordinary intercourse of uneventful life, would the barrier
+which she had raised against him have been flung down? Where else than
+in this island prison of Salicudi would he have seen the glorious vision
+of hope over that barrier's crumbling walls? Dwelling on these matters,
+he was able to answer her pessimism with a genuine smile.</p>
+
+<p>"When I first met you I told myself that I should have to play a waiting
+game," he said. "Well, it is proving itself so, literally."</p>
+
+<p>She flushed faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"You must forgive me," she sighed. "We women are not taught to wait. And
+in America we are allowed to be petulant, you know." She smiled. "You
+Britishers have more sense of discipline. But an end? Surely you
+yourself must want to see one? How long are you to lie there, paralyzed
+for action?"</p>
+
+<p>He was silent for a moment, and his eyes were shadowed.</p>
+
+<p>"It is I who must ask forgiveness," he said at last. "Perhaps&mdash;I hardly
+realized what it is&mdash;for you."</p>
+
+<p>A throb of compunction stung her. She gave a little cry of protest.</p>
+
+<p>"For me? It is a thousand times worse for you. I have liberty, in a
+sense. They let me walk abroad, even, at times&mdash;I am not interfered
+with&mdash;I can look out to sea and&mdash;and hope. I have you to lean on. But
+you? You lie within these four walls and think, and think. Your only
+support is within yourself. And I am a drag upon you."</p>
+
+<p>And then she turned her face from the sudden passion in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Claire!" he said. "Claire!"</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer in words. She made a little gesture which seemed to
+plead for forbearance, for a postponement to an inevitable but far
+distant morrow. She rose and walked to the window.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a ship passing now," she reported. "Half a mile from land. I
+can see her flag&mdash;the Union Jack. A Newcastle collier, I expect, by her
+bulk and her grime. I suppose there are a score of unwashed deck hands
+and heavers in her forecastle who would sweep this island bare of the
+human vermin who infest it if we could let them know our need, if we
+could signal&mdash;wave&mdash;act! Act? But to go on waiting? To have not so much
+as a plan?"</p>
+
+<p>He rose cautiously.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no one in sight?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She looked right and left, keenly suspicious.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said, at last. "I watched Luigi back to the houses after he
+left our food. He and half a dozen more are at the landing place. Two or
+three are on board the felucca, working her with sweeps into the shelter
+of the little breakwater. Mr. Miller? He is sitting on a boulder,
+watching&mdash;and like us, I suppose&mdash;waiting. What are we all doing but
+that? Fate is to be the arbiter for all of us. We can offer no
+interference."</p>
+
+<p>He came up beside her, keeping in the shadow and peering cautiously
+between the bars. His glance was directed at the <i>Santa Margarita</i> as
+the toilers at the sweeps slowly worked her to her moorings.</p>
+
+<p>"They are making it the more difficult for us," he said slowly. "While
+she lay out there in the open, she represented the weapon with which we
+might have defeated Fate, if Fate is against us. Inside the breakwater
+the edge of the weapon is blunt. Did Fate read my thoughts?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"You have had a plan?" she asked. "You have not been leaving all to
+chance?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wind&mdash;that is all I asked," he said. "A storm, a moonless night, and a
+little luck. If I could have got on board the felucca with you and cut
+her from her moorings, we would have played a deal with Fate then. We
+would have enlisted her on our side, to take us where she willed."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes grew vivid with hope and with anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"But to get on board? We are locked in at night, bolted. And those dogs
+of theirs are loose."</p>
+
+<p>"That is it&mdash;they are loose," he said. "A few handfuls of food saved and
+we can attract them to the window, and they will be quiet enough when
+they are fed. It is merely a question of the getting out."</p>
+
+<p>"And how?"</p>
+
+<p>He pointed to a corner of the unmorticed wall.</p>
+
+<p>"Their bars are sound enough, their bolts are out of reach of our
+tampering. But the building itself? Its foundations date from the days
+of Augustus, as likely as not. At night, while you slept, I tried its
+stability, course by course. It was in that corner that I found the weak
+spot. The lower stone I can remove at will. The one above it will fall
+when the support of the first is removed. And I put pressure enough on
+to the outer stones to know that a strong effort will thrust them away.
+The road is open, when we choose to take it."</p>
+
+<p>She clapped her hands softly. Her face glowed.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not now?" she cried. "Why not choose the passing of a ship and then
+signal&mdash;as you signalled to the torpedo boat?"</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"A warship is one thing," he objected, "a merchant ship another. We
+should be poising our all on the intelligence of a look-out-man who
+would be scanning the water, not the land, or of a third officer who
+might not know the code international."</p>
+
+<p>She sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"So we wait," she said despondently.</p>
+
+<p>"So we wait," he agreed. "But not for long." He was looking westward at
+the sky.</p>
+
+<p>"You see something?" she said quickly. "What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wind clouds," he answered. "Cirrus. Fate may be making her preparations
+for to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"To-night?" She repeated the word faintly, incredulously. "I wonder,"
+she said slowly. "I wonder if, after all my yearning for action, I
+shall&mdash;be brave when it really comes to&mdash;to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>He looked down at her.</p>
+
+<p>"And I?" he said. "Have I as good a chance as you to show courage?"</p>
+
+<p>"You?" she answered wonderingly. "You are a man."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he answered. "I am a man. And you, a woman, are dependent on me
+and I am taking you into perils that I can only guess at, dangers that
+lie absolutely in the hands of chance. For which of us is it easiest to
+be brave, you or me?"</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes dropped from his.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you hint?" she temporized. "For me&mdash;why should it be easier for
+me? The&mdash;the cases are equal, are they not?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said quietly. "No, Claire. And you know that they are not. Not
+because you are a woman, but because you are <i>the</i> woman; because you
+are you&mdash;and I&mdash;am myself&mdash;and love you!"</p>
+
+<p>And this time there was a note in his voice which she had not recognized
+before, vibrant, unrestrained, passionate. The thrill of it pulsed
+through her; she felt it in her nerves, her very veins. She flinched
+from it, she gave a tiny pant; the womanly instinct of evasion made her
+draw back from him a startled pace.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't that the truth?" he asked, his voice hoarse with its intensity.
+"Isn't it easy to be brave for oneself alone&mdash;easier than to be brave
+for another?"</p>
+
+<p>She stood looking at him, strangely, doubtfully, the shadow of dumb
+entreaty in her eyes. But in her heart other shadows were fading to
+disclose realities hitherto faintly suspected and half defined. Was this
+the true meaning of the fear which had suddenly been born in the moment
+of hope? Was it for his sake she paused upon the threshold of danger?
+The protective instinct which she had recognized in herself with
+wonder&mdash;had that grown into something more? Was it death with him or
+life without him that she pictured as the worst that Fate could give?</p>
+
+<p>The silence grew in tension but she could not break it. What was only
+then revealing itself to her&mdash;could she reveal it to him? She drew back
+another pace, she held out her hand as if she warded off the inevitable.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot tell," she said weakly. "But&mdash;but I think I could be brave for
+myself&mdash;alone."</p>
+
+<p>He made an exclamation, his arms went out to possess her, his eyes
+shone&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"No!" she cried passionately. "No! Is it fair, is it right to take
+advantage of our position; is it honorable?"</p>
+
+<p>And then she regretted her words in the very speaking of them. The
+passion faded from his face, a shadow veiled his eyes, he made a gesture
+of contrition. And she? With feminine inconsistency she opened her lips
+to undo what she had done, to make her victory defeat.</p>
+
+<p>Again Fate intervened. Aylmer whispered warningly, slipped across the
+flags, and stretched himself upon the pallet. One look through the
+barred window explained his action. A hundred yards away a couple of
+figures were advancing towards the building. She recognized Landon and
+in his companion, Miller, talking vehemently.</p>
+
+<p>She left the window and waited, sitting on the rough stool which was
+placed at the pallet foot.</p>
+
+<p>A minute later the sound of bolts withdrawn and a key in a lock echoed
+under the stone arch. Landon entered alone, debonair, smiling, but with
+eyes which were ominous of intention.</p>
+
+<p>He looked down at the pallet.</p>
+
+<p>"Our sufferer&mdash;our patient? Do we perceive no signs of progress?"</p>
+
+<p>There was danger in his voice; she read it unmistakably.</p>
+
+<p>She shrugged her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"He is no different," she said apathetically. "He has spoken, once or
+twice. I see no change."</p>
+
+<p>"That is the misfortune of it all," said Landon. "You see no change. Can
+your nursing be at fault&mdash;not from want of care, let me say at once, but
+from want of knowledge? Must we call in further advice in consultation?"</p>
+
+<p>His face was white and haggard below the soiled bandage which crossed
+his forehead. The sharpness of his jaw, his sunken cheeks, made of his
+smile a very evil thing. She flinched before it.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot tell," she answered wearily.</p>
+
+<p>"His movements, now?" grinned Landon. "Do they give no indication of his
+condition? Has he no conscious interests?"</p>
+
+<p>The eyes below the bandage glittered and fear stabbed her suddenly. Were
+they betrayed?</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"You see for yourself," she answered, and made a gesture towards the
+motionless form on the pallet.</p>
+
+<p>Landon laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I do not see," he said. "I am not a physician. I cannot walk to a
+bedside and deliver sentences of death or reprieves to life like the
+miracle mongers of Harley Street. Unconsciousness? How is it diagnosed?
+Sometimes by actual experiment <i>in corpore vile</i>, is it not?" He leaned
+over the bed. His hand slipped into a pocket and reappeared holding an
+open penknife. He thrust it suddenly into Aylmer's arm.</p>
+
+<p>She gave a cry of indignation; she seized his hand and dragged him back.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed savagely and tried to fling her off. She threw her whole
+weight upon his wrist, clinging to it.</p>
+
+<p>And then he laughed again, with malignant enjoyment. He changed his
+tactics. He no longer evaded her grip. He jerked her towards him. And
+this time the penknife point found a new sheath. Deliberately he stabbed
+it against her shoulder and&mdash;held it there!</p>
+
+<p>She shrieked.</p>
+
+<p>There was a stirring from the pallet bed. With a mighty leap Aylmer was
+on his feet! His face was convulsed; his eyes were lightnings.</p>
+
+<p>For the third time Landon laughed, triumphantly. In the same motion he
+released his prisoner and sent her spinning against Aylmer's
+outstretched arm. He himself was at the door and outside it, slamming
+it, locking it, flinging home bolt after bolt before the two inside had
+recovered from the sudden shock. A moment later he reappeared at the
+window.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my early convalescent!" he mocked. "Have you no thanks for such a
+sudden recovery? And you, sister-in-law, for such a lesson in the
+healing art? Think of the efforts wasted on that malingerer. Aren't you
+blushing for the ease with which you were deceived?"</p>
+
+<p>And then the twinkle of wicked laughter faded from his eyes. He drew
+near the window bars and glowered down at them evilly.</p>
+
+<p>"Or are you blushing for yourself, you wanton!" he cried. "You who
+deceived me into leaving you with him as a nurse, and knew that he
+needed none. A little paragraph with hints&mdash;or more than hints, the
+truth&mdash;about such a matter, and where do you stand? Are there society
+rags in London and New York ready to accept that sort of matter? Yes,
+virtuous cousin and sister-in-law, I think there are, I think there
+are!"</p>
+
+<p>Neither of them flinched. They looked at him fixedly and, in the girl's
+case, almost wonderingly. And Landon read the message of her incredulity
+with a chuckle of enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>"I keep on presenting surprises to you, do I not?" he grinned. "My
+versatility, the quickness with which I seize new points of humor
+impresses you?"</p>
+
+<p>For a moment she was silent. And then, as if a force beyond her control
+forced her to speak, she answered him.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not believe in the possibility of there being a thing as vile as
+yourself," she said. "I did not think God allowed such as you to live!"</p>
+
+<p>The satyr-like grin broadened across his haggard cheeks. He leered down
+at them.</p>
+
+<p>"I revel in it!" he answered. "By the Lord! Till you've tried absolutely
+unrestrained wickedness, till you've thrown off every sort of control,
+till you're one with the devil and proud of it, you don't know what
+enjoyment is!" His eyes glowed; he smote his fist ecstatically on the
+stones. "It's great!" he cried. "Great!"</p>
+
+<p>A gray figure came suddenly into view behind him. Miller's face showed
+white against the shadow of the dusk which was heralding its coming by
+the deepening azure of the sea and sky. And his glance seemed to hold a
+significance which the prisoners were meant to read, but for which they
+had no clue.</p>
+
+<p>Landon heard him and wheeled.</p>
+
+<p>He surveyed him slowly and then he laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm beyond you now, teacher!" he derided. "I used to admire you&mdash;the
+callousness, the relentlessness&mdash;which you could put into a job! But I'm
+way up above you. Decency had to be part of your stock-in-trade."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed again, his harsh, cackling merriment, and there was a note in
+it which struck a new chord of fear in Claire's heart. It was inhuman,
+unintelligent, this laughter. It fell poignantly, horribly on the ear.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow&mdash;<i>mañana</i>!" chuckled Landon. "I'm coming back with all my
+friends. We'll give hours of daylight to the job and, by God! we'll make
+a good one! Think it over; give it your attention through the night! My
+terms, every word of them or&mdash;well, try and guess the persuasions I'll
+use. Meditate on them; paint them up in your imaginations and then
+you'll fall short! And as for restraints, remember that in my particular
+case there isn't such a thing, not one!"</p>
+
+<p>He stood staring down at them through a moment of leering
+self-satisfaction, and then slowly, reluctantly, turned away. He took
+Miller's arm and drew him insistently down the path. His evil laughter
+came back to them shrill upon the evening breeze.</p>
+
+<p>Inside their prison the two turned and confronted each other. Then
+Aylmer spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"He has defied God, and the judgment of God has fallen on him. He is
+insane&mdash;that is evident! Insane with malice, with his surrender to the
+devil and all his works."</p>
+
+<p>Her lips were parched. She whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"And to-morrow?" she questioned, thickly. "To-morrow&mdash;we shall have to
+surrender, too. To him?"</p>
+
+<p>He clenched his fists.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" he said. "No! Not while Fate has given us to-night&mdash;to-night!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>PADRE SIGISMONDI</h3>
+
+
+<p>The presage of the afternoon sky was amply fulfilled by midnight. The
+western gale howled through the window bars and the sound of the sea's
+thunder rolled up from the beach. For the Mediterranean it was a gale
+beyond the normal, one that had borrowed strength from its Atlantic kin.
+It lashed the green islands of the archipelago with unaccustomed
+violence. The vine poles fell in ranks before its blast; the lava dust
+whirled up in spirals; the pebbles clattered along the face of the
+shingle. And yet there was something strange, noticeable, almost
+ominous, about the tempest. It had none of the northern breath of ice.
+It was a hot wind; in spring or summer, and had it risen in the south,
+one would have called it sirocco and kept in the shadow throughout its
+blowing. But this wind blew from the north and the month was December.
+The islanders mused over the phenomenon debatingly.</p>
+
+<p>Inside the prison the storm muffled sounds which, however, no listener
+was abroad to detect. A common table fork his only implement, Aylmer was
+levering the massive corner-stones inch by inch from their seating. The
+lower one had already been removed, but the upper one, as expected, had
+not fallen from its place. He panted as he put forth his strength upon
+it. The ebb and flow of his pulses swelled in the half-healed scar on
+his temple. Blood was flowing from a few superficial cuts upon his
+fingers. He ground his teeth and tugged at the stone savagely, worrying
+it as a terrier might worry a defiant rat. And then, with an unexpected
+jerk, it fell out upon him bodily. He dropped backwards, the stone's
+weight upon his leg.</p>
+
+<p>He gave a half-muffled cry, not of pain, but of satisfaction. The rest
+was easy; the road was open.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as he panted in the relief of accomplished effort, Fate rebuked
+his satisfaction with a sudden threat. A step sounded coming up the
+gravel.</p>
+
+<p>His temperamental coolness and presence of mind never stood a test
+better. He stood up, raised each stone in quick succession, and placed
+them swiftly, carefully, and silently beneath the coverlet of his
+companion's bed. She flung herself down beside them. He drew his own
+pallet into the corner from which the stones had been removed and lay,
+his face to the wall, the huddle of the bed clothes hiding the opening.
+A moment later a light shone through the window. The light of a lamp
+illuminated a wrinkled Italian face.</p>
+
+<p>The watcher blinked at them suspiciously, grunted, and then with a
+half-articulate expression of satisfaction, turned away. The light
+bobbed slowly off into the distance, flaring and guttering before the
+force of the wind. Inside the prison a sigh went up&mdash;a chorussed echo of
+relief.</p>
+
+<p>"Landon is taking no chances," said Aylmer, in a whisper. "We are to be
+visited, at intervals. That is evident."</p>
+
+<p>He heard something like the sound of a sob in the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"It means defeat&mdash;this?" asked Claire. "Fate is setting her face against
+us. We are not even to have our chance!"</p>
+
+<p>"No!" he said grimly. "Fate is not against us. I feel it, I have
+believed it all along. And if she is, then it is our duty to defy her.
+After all, we can use the chief source of danger to defeat suspicion;
+that is easy."</p>
+
+<p>He rose cautiously and plucked the remaining stones from the hole. He
+placed them in his own bed; he arranged matters carefully. And then he
+made a motion towards the new-made opening.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you lead?" he said quietly. "Will you be the first to
+confront&mdash;Fate?"</p>
+
+<p>She gave a little gasp.</p>
+
+<p>"I?" she said, and hesitated, fear in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You, if you will," he answered simply. "Make your way out and hide
+yourself in the nearest convenient shadow. Then, if he returns before I
+can join you, await me. If not&mdash;" He shrugged his shoulders. "I shall be
+at your heels."</p>
+
+<p>She still paused, and her fingers clenched and unclenched.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not expect&mdash;to be&mdash;separated," she breathed. "My strength&mdash;I did
+not realize it at first&mdash;is coming all from you."</p>
+
+<p>His hand went out into the darkness and touched her.</p>
+
+<p>"From now on, it will be used in your service," he said quietly. "For
+you and you alone." She felt the hand quiver. "Whether you ask it or
+not, whether I am to be all to you in the future, or nothing. It will be
+there&mdash;for your asking."</p>
+
+<p>And then, because the need of that strength came upon her with a force
+which she could not control, she gripped the protecting hand between her
+fingers and&mdash;Fate alone knows why&mdash;raised it to her lips. The next
+instant she had slipped past him in the darkness and was drawing herself
+through the opening. She rose to her knees, to her feet. She stood out
+upon the wind-swept earth, free. Free of the material prison behind her.
+Had she not laid upon herself new bonds? It was a thought too new, too
+indefinite, too strangely sweet. The tumult of her feelings was in
+accord with the tumult of the night.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a name="illus4" id="illus4"></a>
+<img src="images/illus4.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3><i>She gripped the protecting hand between her fingers</i></h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>She stood, expectant, her ears alert for sounds. There was no grating of
+pebbles upon the path. But from the hole at her feet the faint rip of
+clothing torn against the angle of the stone. The next instant Aylmer
+had emerged, but did not rise. His hands, returning to the opening,
+still worked at something within. And then she gave a little gasp. A
+light shone at her feet. It made a tiny, yellow splash in the darkness
+and fell&mdash;on Aylmer's face.</p>
+
+<p>Terror paralyzed her; she stood as if turned to stone; her hands
+clenched into her clothing upon her breast. And Aylmer lay as
+motionless, the golden gleam falling directly into his eyes, which did
+not even blink.</p>
+
+<p>A sound broke the stillness&mdash;a sound which came from the far side of
+their prison&mdash;and the light disappeared. She heard footsteps which
+retreated; she recognized again the grunt which told of another
+inspection made to the inspector's content. But what had saved
+them&mdash;what?</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer rose and stood beside her. His hand gently gripped her elbow and
+drew her out into the roar and beat of the tempest. He headed inland;
+the path which the sentinel had taken was the one which led towards the
+shore.</p>
+
+<p>A minute later she breathed her question. And he laughed lightly in the
+darkness. The sound, incongruous as it seemed to her sense of
+ever-menacing fear, thrilled her strangely. If he could laugh, was not
+Fate laughing with him? Was there not a smile on the face of Hope?</p>
+
+<p>"I was only just through the hole when he came, when he flashed his
+lantern at what he supposed was my body, recumbent on the bed. I was
+holding up the bed clothes <i>from outside</i>; I had not had time to shove
+the stones back into place."</p>
+
+<p>She shuddered at the nearness of the hazard. Supposing the man had come
+at the very moment of escape&mdash;supposing?</p>
+
+<p>"But the light?" she protested. "The light shone upon your face!"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed again.</p>
+
+<p>"The bed clothes had a hole in them!" he said. "I held them up into the
+form of human shoulders, and through a rent his lantern beat directly on
+my face! He could not, of course, see me, but I got a good view of him.
+It was Luigi himself, this time. Has Fate been whispering to him, do you
+think? Has she made him suspicious?"</p>
+
+<p>She stumbled and caught at him to steady herself. He looked down in
+sudden, quick compunction.</p>
+
+<p>"It has been too much for you!" he said anxiously. "You are feeling
+faint?"</p>
+
+<p>"No!" she said quietly. "I am trying to think of it as a nightmare from
+which I shall wake directly, but it is real! Whenever that comes home to
+me it&mdash;it is a pain. Well, it will not be a long ordeal now, will it? We
+meet Fate at the landing stage, and she will give her decision. Can we
+unmoor the <i>Santa Margarita</i> from inside the breakwater, or can we not?
+She will know."</p>
+
+<p>He nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"In five minutes we, too, shall know. We are circling for the Marina
+now. A couple of hundred yards and we shall be there!"</p>
+
+<p>They strode on into the darkness, with eyes and ears alert. They heard
+the battling of the waves against the stones of the tiny pier, but what
+they did not hear was the sound of singing cordage in the felucca's
+rigging.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer halted with a sudden, muffled exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>"They have unshipped the mast!" he cried sharply, and this time she
+recognized, even in his voice, the note of defeat.</p>
+
+<p>She echoed his exclamation; she followed at his heels as he ran out upon
+the little breakwater. No, there had been no room for mistake. The great
+mast with its cross spar lay along the stone flags. The hull was snugly
+berthed alongside it, within the tiny harbor. The dingy? There was none;
+they had cast it loose when they fled from the torpedo boat through the
+island channel.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he did not speak. He stood, looking silently at the
+dismantled boat, the raging sea, the swinging lights of a passing
+steamer. Then he turned and shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"To step that mast into place again is beyond one man's strength," he
+said. "To fling ourselves out into that whirl on a mastless hull is to
+court death inevitably. What is the alternative? We could stand in front
+of the shed here, screened from view inland, and signal some passing
+vessel with flares, if we had the means of making a light. That would
+not be a good chance, but it has possibilities."</p>
+
+<p>"And I have matches!" she said eagerly. "I have my chatelaine still. I
+have even my purse yet. So far they have not robbed me."</p>
+
+<p>He turned as she spoke and without comment ran back across the shingle.
+He began to pluck handfuls of the dry, bent grass which found a sparse
+livelihood in the belt of sand between the shore and the vineyards. He
+returned, rummaged among the litter around the shed, broke up some
+stray pieces of driftwood into chips, and thrust a lighted match among
+the bents. A flame shot up, passed from the tinder to the wood, and
+within a minute was a well-lit fire. He twisted the remaining handfuls
+of grass into spirals, wetted them slightly in the sea, and held them to
+the flame.</p>
+
+<p>They burnt slowly with a red glow, as he swung them to and fro in the
+wind; in dashes, in dots, in circles, he spelled messages into the
+night, but no answering lantern or rocket came from the sea. And she
+watched apathetically. For her hope was dead again, the hand of Fate had
+closed. This was action; this helped them to avoid thinking, to avert
+anticipation, but success was a matter outside her calculations. The
+sense of nightmare closed down upon her again. The storm, the red
+flashes against the purple darkness, the wild unaccustomedness of
+everything heightened the illusion. But when would she wake? Ah, when
+would she wake?</p>
+
+<p>And then&mdash;she rubbed her eyes. A light&mdash;surely this was no freak of her
+fevered eyesight?&mdash;danced into view within a couple of hundred yards of
+the shore. For a moment it swung to the lift and surge of the waves
+alone, but a moment later it rose half a dozen feet into the air, and
+flashed and circled as the charred torch in Aylmer's hand was
+circling&mdash;an answer to their message of despair. She gasped with
+eagerness; she cried aloud.</p>
+
+<p>Was it fancy or did another cry reach them through the thunder of the
+waves?</p>
+
+<p>The light stayed motionless for an instant, and then swung towards them.
+Whatever vessel was bearing it had turned its prow towards the shore.
+Aylmer caught up another glowing handful of bents and ran out to the
+breakwater's end. Claire's heart beat in suffocating throbs as she
+followed.</p>
+
+<p>Again a cry reached them, and Aylmer waved his beacon vigorously. A
+sudden shaft of moonlight sank through a rift in the flying clouds.</p>
+
+<p>They saw it then&mdash;a dark mass which plunged and heaved among the white
+crests, and drifted nearer and nearer. There was no sail set, but they
+could see the rise and fall of a couple of great oars which steadied the
+boat as it advanced by drifting only. It was less than a cable length
+distant now, passing through the ring of rocks which guarded the harbor
+entrance.</p>
+
+<p>They held their breath. Ten seconds would do it, but ten seconds held an
+infinitude of possibilities. If the boat broached to, if its prow,
+indeed, deflected a couple of yards from the course, would not that give
+Fate a chance to fling her scorn upon their rising hopes? Their eyes
+were strained. Claire's hand was clenched till her nails seemed to sink
+into the flesh of her palm. And then she gave a sigh of relief. The boat
+had passed the outer rock, was heading straight for the inner harbor and
+the calm.</p>
+
+<p>Fate laughed harshly.</p>
+
+<p>A gust stormed in from the sea, caught the boat's prow, swung it, caused
+the port side rower to meet its strength too swiftly with his own. They
+heard a crack&mdash;heard it distinctly above the uproars of the gale. The
+oar had broken between the thole-pins; the rower was down.</p>
+
+<p>There was another crashing sound, louder this time, and menacing. A
+great sea raced beneath the laboring keel, lifted it, shook it, and
+flung it aside, full upon the rock. The white gleam of the new-made
+splinters reached them through the smother of the foam fifty yards away.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer cried out and raced back along the stones. His hands plucked at
+the cordage which was folded about the felucca's mast, and drew out a
+rope. He came back at speed, unwinding the coils as he came. He thrust
+the loose end into her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Get a purchase against a stone and then hold on&mdash;hold on!" he ordered.
+He flung off his coat.</p>
+
+<p>She cried out in protest; she clung to him.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" she cried. "No!"</p>
+
+<p>Very gently, very firmly, her hand was drawn aside. He bent over her;
+something touched faintly&mdash;very faintly&mdash;her lips. The next instant she
+was alone. He had leaped&mdash;far out into the grip of the tide.</p>
+
+<p>She caught her breath and clutched the rope; she flung herself down and
+wedged her limbs behind a boulder. Fate was relentless, she told
+herself, was cruel beyond even her darkest anticipations. For now her
+one support was to be denied her; she was to be left alone. She set her
+lips grimly. No, she would never see Aylmer again, but she would defy
+Fate! She was to be crushed, but she would go down fighting; she would
+be worthy of herself&mdash;and of him.</p>
+
+<p>The vagrant shaft of moonlight was gone again; the darkness was
+well-nigh impenetrable. The rope swung between her fingers unstraining.
+The minutes passed one by one; the tension of expectancy plucked at her
+nerves; she shivered, but not with cold. Even if it was the worst that
+was to come upon her she wanted to know&mdash;to know.</p>
+
+<p>The rope grew taut.</p>
+
+<p>It was as if an electric shock thrilled her. She braced herself against
+the stone, and her muscles tightened; slowly, using her strength to its
+utmost but with steady effort, she began to haul it in foot by foot. It
+came heavily but unceasingly, the coils unwinding fathom after fathom
+at her side.</p>
+
+<p>And then the strain ceased as suddenly as it had begun. A voice hailed
+her out of the darkness, almost at her feet. A dark bulk rose at the
+breakwater's edge.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer staggered towards her and laid something on the stones&mdash;something
+which stirred uneasily but unavailingly, clogged, as it seemed, by the
+weight of its sodden clothing.</p>
+
+<p>She knelt beside it. She brushed the lank hair from a dripping face.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer waved her back.</p>
+
+<p>"There is another!" he shouted. "Hold on if you can! Hold on!" and so
+plunged back into the surf. For the second time she braced herself to
+endure the strain&mdash;to wait&mdash;to agonize with expectation. And again Fate
+played with her, racked her between hope and fear, drew out the strain
+and then, as suddenly, relaxed it. Aylmer crept out upon the stones,
+gasping, doggedly clinging to a new burden.</p>
+
+<p>This time it was the bearer who staggered and fell, the burden who rose
+unsteadily, and peered into his rescuer's face.</p>
+
+<p>She dropped upon her knees beside him. Pale, clean-cut ascetic features
+were lifted to hers. Two dark brown eyes inspected her with startled
+incredulity.</p>
+
+<p>And then the man rose and&mdash;the act was instinctive, it was
+obvious&mdash;doffed his hat.</p>
+
+<p>"Signora," he said in Italian. "Signora! This is Salicudi, is it not? I
+am at a loss&mdash;I do not understand."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment she hesitated, looking at him. The long black garment which
+clung about him reached to his feet. Suddenly she recognized it, and,
+with recognition, a little cry escaped her. It was a <i>soutane</i>. And
+this was no sailor. She was confronted by a priest.</p>
+
+<p>As she opened her lips to find a reply, something clattered behind her;
+something rushed, calling upon the names of innumerable saints, out of
+the darkness, and seized her shoulder. A harsh voice rang into the
+echoes of the night.</p>
+
+<p>"To me&mdash;to me, all of you! They are escaping! Blood of My Lady, the
+prisoners are loose!"</p>
+
+<p>The man in the soutane whirled fiercely upon the newcomer. And as he
+turned the moon broke through the scurry of the drift and fell upon the
+group in cold brilliance.</p>
+
+<p>"Prisoners!" The voice was incredulous, wrathful, and above all full of
+command. "Prisoners! You speak of&mdash;whom?"</p>
+
+<p>The hand upon Claire's shoulder dropped. Her captor fell away as if
+struck by a physical blow.</p>
+
+<p>"Padre Sigi!" he stammered, and his voice was convincing of his
+amazement. "Padre Sigi!"</p>
+
+<p>The other nodded imperiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Padre Sigismondi," he agreed. "At your service, my good Luigi. At your
+service!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>LUIGI'S HOSPITALITY</h3>
+
+
+<p>The smuggler's eyes expressed the limits of amazement. He stared at the
+newcomer. He turned his glance to Aylmer, as if he sought information
+there. He brought it back and focussed it upon the dripping <i>soutane</i>.
+He made inarticulate noises of incredulity; he flung up his hands with
+gestures of bewilderment.</p>
+
+<p>"You arrive&mdash;how, reverend father?" he cried. "What have you used? The
+wings of a bird, the fins of a fish?"</p>
+
+<p>"The eyes of a God-fearing priest," retorted Padre Sigismondi. "I saw
+signals being flashed from your island. With Emmanuele here," he pointed
+to the dripping figure which still lay upon the stones, "I was passing
+your abode of sin on my way to Stromboli. I had, in fact, no choice&mdash;I
+was being blown there. I saw the signals, I say, but read no meaning in
+them. Some unconfessed wretch needs extreme unction, say I to myself,
+and steered among the teeth of your reefs. One of our sweeps broke at a
+critical moment. This cavalier here leaped in to our rescue. I have not
+properly thanked him yet because I am awaiting explanation of the words
+I heard as you thrust yourself upon us. Prisoners, did you say? It must
+be a cataclysm of morality which has made you a gaoler or a judge, my
+wonderful Luigi."</p>
+
+<p>The smuggler shivered and blenched.</p>
+
+<p>"This man and this woman are in a sense prisoners," he allowed. "They
+are not on good terms with our other&mdash;guests. We have had to restrain
+their liberties."</p>
+
+<p>Padre Sigismondi regarded him fixedly. The unfortunate Luigi's tongue
+protruded with nervousness; his cheek muscles twitched. The priest
+shrugged his shoulders as he turned to Aylmer.</p>
+
+<p>"I arrive unceremoniously," he smiled, "but not inopportunely, it seems.
+May I have your version of the extraordinary circumstances in which I
+find the Signora and yourself, Signor?"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer smiled back at him.</p>
+
+<p>"They are simple enough, father," he answered. "We are prisoners; there
+is no need for our friend here to beat about the bush. At the
+instigation of&mdash;of a certain enemy of ours, in whose pay the good Luigi
+finds himself, we were kidnapped from the port of Melilla and brought
+here. It was our signals you saw. May I add my profound regrets at the
+misfortune you experienced in answering them?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Church is a boat to the bad, but possibly a gainer in
+righteousness," said the other. "I may be the means of preventing some
+irretrievable sin on the part of these islanders. You were being held to
+ransom, do I understand?"</p>
+
+<p>The dripping figure at his feet stirred and rose weakly to a standing
+posture. A cackle of laughter came from between the chattering teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"The gaol-bird as gaoler&mdash;eh, but that is a rib-rending jest, Luigi. You
+have imagination, <i>amico</i>, imagination and, it seems, opportunity. You
+will go far!"</p>
+
+<p>The sailor turned his wrinkled face on the abashed smuggler; his white
+teeth flashed a prodigious smile. He seemed to find nothing
+disconcerting in the situation, but desired to show quickness in seizing
+its points of humor.</p>
+
+<p>"He will certainly go far, my good Emmanuele," agreed Padre Sigismondi,
+drily. "As far as the penal station on Procida if I am not hugely
+mistaken, or unless he shows a most improbable repentance. What have we
+here? Other warders in this private penitentiary?"</p>
+
+<p>Footsteps clattered along the tiny causeway. With a rush, half a dozen
+figures swept up to them through the moonlight, Landon at their head.
+This was the answer to Signor Luigi's frantic shouts.</p>
+
+<p>The rush wavered, hesitated, came to a halt. The islanders recognized
+the grim, aggressive form in the <i>soutane</i> with sharp exclamations of
+amazement and alarm. Landon, without their experience, felt the
+impalpable infection of their fear. He, too, halted, staring
+mistrustfully at the priest and his companions.</p>
+
+<p>He shook Luigi by the elbow.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>The smuggler made a deferential outward movement of his palms.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a visit, an unexpected visit, from our&mdash;our vicar," he explained.
+"It is the Padre Sigi&mdash;Sigismondi, I should say."</p>
+
+<p>The padre stepped forward and spoke in crisp, imperturbable tones.</p>
+
+<p>"I am peripatetic confessor to these islands, Signor," he said. "There
+is a bitter need of six priests to each island, rather than six islands
+to a priest. It is an abode of wickedness, this. That, perhaps, has not
+been hidden from you?"</p>
+
+<p>Landon kept a moment's silence. Then he smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"I confess that I have not augmented its morality, in bulk, Signor," he
+said. "In fact, by adding the two who stand behind you to its
+population, I have done far otherwise. Instead of being where you find
+them, they should be under lock and key."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" demanded the priest, laconically.</p>
+
+<p>"Because they robbed me," answered Landon. "Because, for wicked purposes
+of their own, they took from me&mdash;not gold, but what is beyond the price
+of gold or buying&mdash;my only son."</p>
+
+<p>"You accuse them of&mdash;kidnapping?" The good man's voice was coldly
+incredulous.</p>
+
+<p>Landon made a gesture of assent.</p>
+
+<p>"Of that and of attempted murder. They hired Moorish desperadoes to
+attack me, to ride me down."</p>
+
+<p>"And you have made of yourself not only prosecutor, but judge, jury, and
+keeper of their prison?"</p>
+
+<p>"These things happened in Africa, outside civilized jurisdiction. Was I
+to lack justice when it lay in the hollow of my hand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are there no consular courts? If not, you cannot bring your private
+cause to private verdict in the dominions of the King of Italy, however
+bad his title to the throne."</p>
+
+<p>"Your reverence is a Legitimist?" grinned Landon.</p>
+
+<p>"In every sense of the word, Signor. My sense of legitimacy finds your
+arguments unsound."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at Claire with an apologetic bow.</p>
+
+<p>"And as a matter of fact, Signora, I have not heard your statement. How
+does it vary from this gentleman's? Or does it, perhaps, corroborate
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him very steadily.</p>
+
+<p>"The man to whom you have been talking," she said slowly, "is, I think,
+Signor, the worst man whom God permits to live."</p>
+
+<p>He made a little gesture of protest.</p>
+
+<p>"You have suffered at his hands&mdash;is that it? But your sentence is too
+sweeping a one, is it not? Surely, Signora, surely?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" she said determinedly. "Traitor, forger, thief&mdash;we know him to be
+all these. And last, but not least, murderer. A murderer of souls. I do
+not know if he has taken a fellow creature's life, but for five years he
+racked into the numbness of despair the soul of my sister, who was his
+wife."</p>
+
+<p>He made a tiny exclamation of sympathy; he held up his hand as if he put
+away from him a spectre of evil.</p>
+
+<p>He looked back to Landon.</p>
+
+<p>"You have heard, Signor?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard," said Landon, easily. "As a tale it has no originality
+and therefore little interest for me. I have heard it a hundred times.
+Your reverence found fault, a moment back, with my self-assumed status
+of judge. Are you going to borrow the cloak which you do not permit me
+to wear? You have heard both sides. To what proof can you refer a
+decision?"</p>
+
+<p>The long, lean figure drew itself up very rigidly.</p>
+
+<p>"I am a sinful man myself, Signor. I make no decisions. But I have been
+appealed to, as I understand, by those whom I find in your power. I
+shall not permit your restraint of them to continue. You can refer any
+grievance you have against them to properly constituted tribunals over
+there." He lifted his arm and pointed south to where storm and night hid
+Sicily.</p>
+
+<p>He turned to Luigi.</p>
+
+<p>"Emmanuele and I are, as you see, sodden to the skin. It may reach your
+great intelligence, by degrees, that we need warmth and refreshment."</p>
+
+<p>The smuggler made an apologetic gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"But certainly, Reverenza. There is in the house a fire. My poor
+provisions are at your service."</p>
+
+<p>The priest looked towards Claire with another courtly doffing of his
+hat.</p>
+
+<p>"And you, Signora, and you, Signor, will add to my felicity by sharing
+both with me?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"They have not starved us; we had food a couple of hours ago," she said.
+"But your company, here and to the mainland, is a boon straight from the
+hand of God."</p>
+
+<p>He inclined his head in assent.</p>
+
+<p>"I am His servant, Signora," he said. "I thank Him for permitting me to
+serve Him, in serving you. Shall we make our way to the house? The hour
+must be close on midnight."</p>
+
+<p>He made a motion towards the path. He looked imperturbably at Landon,
+who, with Muhammed, still stood astride it.</p>
+
+<p>"You appear to be blocking the lady's way, Signor," he said. "Not
+intentionally, I dare to hope."</p>
+
+<p>Landon shrugged his shoulders and drew aside.</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary, your reverence. Not for worlds would I stand between
+you and refreshment&mdash;and sleep."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at Muhammed with a half-sardonic, half-inquiring gaze as he
+spoke. And there was a faintly emphasized inflection on the last two
+words.</p>
+
+<p>The Moor looked back at him impassively, and then drew aside with an
+obsequious droop of the head.</p>
+
+<p>But to Claire and, to a less extent to Aylmer, there was a queer,
+indefinite sense of something which impended&mdash;something which racked
+them with suspicion in the attitude of those about them. Landon's
+surrender was too facile; Luigi's deference too pliant; Muhammed's
+apathetic eyes were never less convincing of guilelessness. When they
+reached the cottage, and stood with Padre Sigismondi before the blaze in
+the great open hearth and watched the quick preparations which were
+being made to improvise a meal, the unreality of their surroundings
+seemed to grow in significance. No one interfered with them; no one even
+noticed them. Luigi set the table; Muhammed busied himself with the
+coffee-pot; Landon held the father's dripping garments to the blaze
+while their owner assumed a sailor's trousers and jersey in an adjoining
+room. It was too incredible, this sudden turning of tables. They looked
+at each other doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>Their speculations received a sudden interruption. The door opened to
+admit Miller.</p>
+
+<p>He was half dressed. He blinked&mdash;it was apparent that he and sleep had
+parted company a short half minute before.</p>
+
+<p>"I heard noises," he said, and then his glance fell upon the two who
+stood near the fireplace, side by side. His usual phlegm seemed to
+desert him. He gave an exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>"You!" he cried. "You!"</p>
+
+<p>He wheeled towards Landon.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you explain?" he cried harshly. "What is happening?"</p>
+
+<p>"I entertain guests&mdash;a small, but select, family party," grinned Landon.</p>
+
+<p>The gray man stared at him with still unappeased surprise. Then,
+suddenly, his face cleared. He looked at Claire; he looked on beyond her
+to Aylmer.</p>
+
+<p>"You have met his terms? You see the hopelessness of it all; you have
+been wise?"</p>
+
+<p>His voice was smooth, now, and had lost its harsh tones of amazement. He
+purred his approbation.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"We have been wise, my dear Miller," he agreed. He laughed again as
+Padre Sigismondi briskly entered the room. He had the aspect of an
+ascetic but experienced mariner in his new garb. He bowed to Miller
+courteously but inquiringly. The inquiry, it was to be noticed, was
+directed in part towards Aylmer and his companion.</p>
+
+<p>But Aylmer offered no introduction. He drew forward a chair, and placed
+it in front of the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"A good roasting after your immersion? Let me prescribe that," he said.</p>
+
+<p>The priest looked at him and then gave a cry of commiseration.</p>
+
+<p>"But you yourself, Signor&mdash;you remain in your sodden clothes?"</p>
+
+<p>"For a very simple reason, father," said Aylmer, smiling. "I was taken
+prisoner, but not my luggage. I stand up in my belongings."</p>
+
+<p>The house began to resound with the recriminations which the priest
+addressed to Luigi. Why had he not provided the cavalier with a suitable
+change of raiment while his own clothes dried? Why had he not done this;
+why had he not done that?</p>
+
+<p>The smuggler ran to and fro distractedly. A jersey came from one press.
+A shirt from another. A cupboard supplied trousers; a deplorable collar
+which had had no recent acquaintance with a laundry was even offered and
+declined. Aylmer retired into the adjoining room, and Landon, on his
+return, with imperturbable aplomb received and began to dry the wet
+clothes he had taken off. Miller reviewed these proceedings with
+unqualified amazement. Offered no key to the position, he proceeded to
+probe for one.</p>
+
+<p>"Your reverence has voyaged far?" he hazarded.</p>
+
+<p>"More miles than I care to remember, Signor," said the other,
+courteously. "But ever, alas, in a circle. My peregrinations have been
+bounded, ever since my ordination, by Naples on the north and Palermo or
+Messina in the south. I see much earth and sky and water, especially the
+latter, but I add nothing to geography. I am amphibious, that is all."</p>
+
+<p>His "ordination"? The gleam of discovery woke in Miller's eyes. A
+priest, was it? But the presence of Aylmer and Miss Van Arlen&mdash;how was
+that to be explained? And how far had the newcomer gauged the situation.</p>
+
+<p>"Your reverence finds in us unexpected additions to your flock," he
+said. "The population of Salicudi has increased since you last visited
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"To my very natural satisfaction," said Sigismondi, imperturbably. He
+looked at the steaming bowl of polenta and the coffee-pot which Luigi
+had set upon the table. Emmanuele came in, wrapped in a sheepskin coat
+and grinning at the food expectantly. His master greeted him with a nod.
+"It appears that we are to feast and feast alone, my son," he said.
+"These friends of ours insist on having dined two hours ago. May the
+Blessed bless to us this refreshment."</p>
+
+<p>He seated himself and began to eat slowly, but with relish.</p>
+
+<p>"Heat is a great tonic," he remarked reflectively. "The contents of this
+bowl and, above all, of this admirable coffee-pot, will erase the
+remembrance of the discomforts of the night. And then sleep, but not too
+much of it. Luigi, my friend, we must be off at dawn."</p>
+
+<p>The smuggler's eyebrows rose into arcs.</p>
+
+<p>"How, Reverence?" he exclaimed. "At dawn, and whither, if you please?"</p>
+
+<p>"By way of Celsa, where an infant awaits baptism&mdash;and my friends, I dare
+to hope, will excuse the short delay&mdash;to Messina. Where else, my good
+Luigi? That surely is the place where your guests can most conveniently
+adjust their misunderstandings."</p>
+
+<p>The smuggler shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"I am at your service, father," he said, and looked vacantly at the
+opposite wall. But the tail of his eye, Aylmer noted, was on Landon. Was
+there a message, or inquiry, in it?</p>
+
+<p>"All of us," said Landon, smoothly, "must find your proposition a very
+practical one. May I hasten to add my approval of it?"</p>
+
+<p>He looked smilingly at Aylmer, at Claire, lastly at Muhammed. The
+Moor&mdash;was it Aylmer's fancy?&mdash;answered with a tiny nod. There was
+sarcasm in this glance of Landon's; there was menace; there was&mdash;so
+Aylmer told himself&mdash;malignant triumph.</p>
+
+<p>Padre Sigismondi nodded absently. He presented his coffee-cup to the
+Moor to be refilled, and as the brown liquid ran from the spout, watched
+it with a slow, stolid abstraction. His mental alertness seemed to be
+relaxing with physical refreshment. He offered no further remarks; he
+plied his spoon upon the polenta slowly, and yet more slowly.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Emmanuele, the sailor, dropped his cup in the act of taking a
+more than usually copious draught. He looked stupidly at the coarse
+crockery as it broke upon the floor.</p>
+
+<p>Sigismondi shook a finger at him, a finger which, somehow, he seemed to
+have under no proper command. "Careless one!" he mumbled. "Careless one!
+Where are your manners?" And then, suddenly, as if he heaved back a
+weight, he rose unsteadily to his feet. He threatened Luigi with his
+clenched fist.</p>
+
+<p>"Traitorous dog!" he cried, and fell senseless to the floor.</p>
+
+<p>His companion stared at him stupidly, plunged forward as if to bring him
+aid, and then fell, too, at his feet. The pair lay where they had
+fallen, unmoving.</p>
+
+<p>At the back of the room Landon broke out into pleasant laughter.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer darted forward and bent to shake Sigismondi fiercely by the
+shoulder. Claire cried to him warningly.</p>
+
+<p>Too late!</p>
+
+<p>Landon and Luigi had flung themselves upon him from behind. Muhammed had
+dropped a looped cord across his shoulders. There was a moment's
+confusion&mdash;the corner of the table smashed under a chance blow&mdash;and then
+stillness. Lashed with cords into rigidity, Aylmer lay upon the planks,
+and Landon, gazing down, spat upon his upturned face.</p>
+
+<p>"You clever fool!" he derided. "To think to have cornered me&mdash;me!"</p>
+
+<p>He looked rapidly at his watch and turned to Luigi.</p>
+
+<p>"It is five hours to dawn," he said. "Where is it we are to take them?
+There is no possibility for delay?"</p>
+
+<p>The smuggler threw out his hands with an air of fatalism.</p>
+
+<p>"The headquarters of the Society&mdash;there is no other place!" he said.
+"With this wind, four hours or less will see us there. They will charge
+a commission; you will have to bear with that. But we shall have perfect
+privacy and, if you will, perfected means of dealing with this man's
+obstinacy. And there will be adepts, who will give you their assistance
+for the pleasure of the thing."</p>
+
+<p>Landon nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you hear, my friend, do you hear?" he cried, thrusting his foot
+against Aylmer's cheek. "You have wriggled well in my coils&mdash;I grant you
+that. You have twisted and, for the moment, escape seemed open&mdash;wide
+open&mdash;before you. But against me? No one prevails there, no one!"</p>
+
+<p>"One may&mdash;yet."</p>
+
+<p>The voice was Claire's. Landon wheeled towards her.</p>
+
+<p>"That shows a very determined optimism, sister-in-law," he said. "And
+who, if the knowledge is not privileged?"</p>
+
+<p>"God," she said quietly, and met his eyes unflinchingly.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>FATE'S FINAL WORD</h3>
+
+
+<p>Storm, darkness, despair&mdash;these had been the sole comrades for the two
+who lay bound in their old quarters in the <i>Santa Margarita's</i> lazaret.
+Within a few minutes of the moment in which Padre Sigismondi had
+succumbed to the islander's treacherous hospitality, those who had
+sought his protection had been prisoners once more, and the felucca's
+mast had been stepped anew. For three hours it had bent before the
+strength of the northern wind&mdash;the hot, oppressive breath which seemed
+to blow no longer from Nature's lips but in her very face. For it was an
+unnatural wind&mdash;in temperature, in the quarter from which it came, in
+dampness. The rigging slackened in the humid gusts, but the great sail
+bellied out magnificently. They had torn across the broad waste of
+waters at racing speed. Captain Luigi announced with legitimate pride
+that they had come a matter of five and fifty kilometres. The land
+loomed up before them mountainously a short five miles away.</p>
+
+<p>Landon peered into the darkness. Lights shone far to the left of their
+position&mdash;lights in rows, lights white, lights dusky orange, and far
+beyond the main mass of the illumination one red star which winked in
+solemn intervals.</p>
+
+<p>"Messina," explained Luigi, tersely. "The red beam? That is the Faro."</p>
+
+<p>"And we land where?" asked Landon.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, if the Holy Mother gives us her protection," said the skipper,
+and pointed straight ahead. "In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred there
+is no difficulty about it. The port police&mdash;there are three of them&mdash;are
+cousins of my own and, it is needless to say, controlled by the Society.
+In fifteen minutes you will see."</p>
+
+<p>"The hundredth chance?" said Landon. "That is&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Carbineers, Signor. Or rather one Carbineer&mdash;Sergeant Pinale, who
+has been at the bottom of many an honest contrabandist's misfortune.
+<i>Brutta bestia!</i> He will not keep to any ordered sequence in his goings
+and comings. But the men of the Society will know. If they answer our
+signals, all is well."</p>
+
+<p>Landon looked at him debatingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is to answer signals at this hour of the night, my good Luigi? Your
+colleagues will be in their more or less virtuous beds."</p>
+
+<p>The smuggler smiled a superior smile.</p>
+
+<p>"The Society never sleeps, Signor, and it has trained the men in its
+ranks to remember as much. High on the blank wall of hill above the port
+is a watch-tower, though only a private dwelling-house to all seeming.
+There is a need for the sons of the Mafia to have an open door into
+Sicily at any moment of the day or night."</p>
+
+<p>He called one of the hands to the tiller as he finished speaking and
+went forward. He came back, holding a ship's lantern. There were wings
+of glass on hinges on either side of it&mdash;one red, one green.</p>
+
+<p>He knelt and busied himself in lighting it in the shelter of the
+companion. The breeze had driven them right in under the shadow of the
+land by now. The steep above the shore seemed almost to overhang them.
+Here and there a faint oil lamp flickered along the Marina; a larger,
+nearer, and brighter gleam was evidence of a tiny jetty which was washed
+by waves which were dwindling under the protection of the land.</p>
+
+<p>Luigi lifted his lamp and held it clear of the companion. Rapidly he
+shut the green shield over the untinted glass, as rapidly opened it
+again, shut the red wing twice in quick succession, and finally left the
+green signal closed.</p>
+
+<p>Landon's eyes probed the darkness. His companion stood silent, his face
+raised towards the hill. There was no apprehension in his attitude, only
+expectancy.</p>
+
+<p>Quite suddenly it seemed that the wind had dropped. The shelter of the
+shore might account for this in part, Landon mused, but surely not
+altogether. It was weird, in a sense, this abrupt alternation to perfect
+stillness after the uproars of the outer seas, but it was not
+unpleasant. It gave one a sense of relaxation; but the heat, untempered
+by the faintest breath of air, was incredibly oppressive. December was
+aping the temperatures of August.</p>
+
+<p>Luigi sighed contentedly and spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"All is well, Signor. It remains to get our merchandise ashore."</p>
+
+<p>Landon became aware of a blue speck of light in the darkness&mdash;a speck
+which wavered, grew to a suddenly unexpected point of brightness and
+disappeared. So quickly did it come and go, so evanescent was its
+effect, that none but those who searched for it would have been likely
+to give its appearance a second thought. It might have been caused by
+the passing of a candle behind one of the many panes of frosted glass
+which disfigure Italian villas in <i>villeggiatura</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Luigi gave an order. The two deck hands clutched the halliards. The sail
+was lowered. A moment later the anchor set the ripples herding towards
+the shore as it plunged into the calm below the jetty. Landon and his
+companion descended to the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>Stretched on a bunk was Miller, sleeping the sleep of the justly tired.
+He roused himself at their touch and sat up. He looked about him
+meditatively.</p>
+
+<p>"The wind has dropped, absolutely?" he said. "Since when?"</p>
+
+<p>"Half an hour ago. We are in port," said Landon. "We are ready to land,
+when you will."</p>
+
+<p>The gray man smoothed the creases in his gray coat.</p>
+
+<p>"When <i>I</i> will?" he repeated. "I am a prisoner&mdash;the captive of your bow
+and spear." He smiled with sombre sarcasm.</p>
+
+<p>"That position is to be maintained?" asked Landon.</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally. Your cousin may make my continued residence in Gibraltar
+well-nigh impossible, otherwise."</p>
+
+<p>"My cousin?" Landon repeated the words with a certain doubtfulness. "He
+is my cousin," he said slowly, "and we sha'n't break one of his blood
+except in one way. It's the girl, remember, that is our strong suit.
+There's to be no bleating about that. To win, the trick has to be taken
+with her alone."</p>
+
+<p>Miller nodded woodenly.</p>
+
+<p>"If I had the inclination to interfere, I have not the power," he said.
+"Do you forget that I am a prisoner, like herself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Landon, and there was more than doubt in his expression
+this time, there was suspicion. "I forget it all the time. I want your
+assurance that <i>you</i> won't!"</p>
+
+<p>Miller made a gesture of assent.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's get on," he said. "I understand that it's within a couple of
+hours of dawn."</p>
+
+<p>For an instant Landon hesitated. Then, with Luigi at his heels, he
+entered the lazaret. Neither of them spoke. They bent and lifted Aylmer
+methodically, holding him by his shoulders and his lashed ankles. They
+bore him on deck. They gagged him with the cork float of a fishing-net
+and left him, stark and motionless as a log. They turned back to the
+cabin, and a minute later placed Claire Van Arlen beside him, as
+helpless as himself.</p>
+
+<p>The dingy&mdash;a new one, picked up in the island&mdash;was lowered. The
+prisoners were thrust beneath the seats. A deck hand and Muhammed took
+their places at the oars. Luigi steered; the child, half asleep and
+wrapped in a blanket, drowsed at his feet. Miller and Landon sat on the
+thwarts.</p>
+
+<p>The two rowers dipped their oars without splashing in long, slow
+strokes. The thole-pins were muffled with rags. The boat stole along in
+the shadow of the jetty into the darkness which hid the port. It was
+noiseless, ghost-like, this entry into the little haven. To the two dumb
+prisoners who lay along the bottom of the boat it was ominous of hope
+entirely lost.</p>
+
+<p>They stifled under the cloaks which hid them; the perspiration dripped
+from the rowers, despite the unhurried nature of their work. The weight
+of a dozen atmospheres seemed to have replaced the exhilarating breath
+which Sicily flings seaward from her sun-brimmed shores. Luigi, at the
+helm, gasped and passed his hand across his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Thunder in December! Not natural, Signor, but that is what we must
+expect. I suffocate. <i>Per Dio!</i> The bay is an oven."</p>
+
+<p>He let the prow nose in towards the jetty. Moored boats began to appear
+dimly, right and left of them. The lamplight from the Marina showed an
+empty quay. Luigi steered for the shadow cast by a shed, and took the
+ground silently on a strand of mud and garbage.</p>
+
+<p>The deck hand drew in his oar and skipped nimbly ashore. Muhammed
+followed him. They both laid their hands upon the painter. They bent
+their backs to haul.</p>
+
+<p>Two shadows appeared right and left of them, shadows which seemed to
+have detached themselves from the framework of the shed. Something
+clicked. A yellow beam flared out, full on Luigi's face.</p>
+
+<p>He gasped, he yelled.</p>
+
+<p>"God's Mother&mdash;the Carbineers!"</p>
+
+<p>Landon leaped to his feet with a curse. He seized an oar; he thrust with
+all his strength at the mud. And at the same moment the two on the
+shore, struggling in their captor's hands, let fall the painter. The
+boat shot out stern foremost into deep water.</p>
+
+<p>From the shore came the sound of a struggle and then Muhammed's voice,
+shrill in explanation.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Signori! Signori!</i> I am not a contrabandist! I am a tourist; I can
+prove it; I wish to offer no resistance; I place myself in your hands,
+freely."</p>
+
+<p>There was a grim laugh, and then the yellow beam of light which had been
+withdrawn while the struggle proceeded, flung out its level rays again
+and illuminated the boat.</p>
+
+<p>"Surrender, Luigi!" shouted a stern voice. There was another click.
+"Surrender, <i>stupido</i>! I have you covered; I give you five seconds
+before I fire!"</p>
+
+<p>The shrill voice of the captured sailor reinforced the argument.</p>
+
+<p>"It is over&mdash;finished," he shouted pessimistically. "It is <i>Pinale</i>;
+there is nothing more to be done!"</p>
+
+<p>Luigi groaned and then flung up his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"I give in!" he cried, and burst into a storm of hysterical sobs. "It
+means Procida&mdash;this," he wept. "It means years in chains; it means half
+the rest of my life snatched from me." He turned and smote at Landon in
+the darkness. "I owe it to you, tempter!" he yelled. "Accursed of God,
+you led me into this!"</p>
+
+<p>Landon stumbled in his surprise and then leaped at him like a cat. There
+was a shrill scream from the child as the swaying pair rolled down upon
+the stern sheets, gripping, each of them, for the other's throat. The
+boat rocked violently.</p>
+
+<p>Again the stern command from the shore rang into the night. They gave it
+no heed. Animal rage possessed them; they were no longer men but beasts,
+fighting with hand and foot and knee, clawing, tearing, even biting as
+the chance of conflict brought Luigi's lips within reach of his
+assailant's cheek. They were lost to all human warning or control.</p>
+
+<p>It was no human interference which separated them.</p>
+
+<p>Fate played her hand&mdash;played it irresistibly, crushingly, played it with
+a vindictive completeness such as even she has never used since her grip
+fell upon her plaything&mdash;that toy of hers among a million million toys,
+and which we call our world.</p>
+
+<p>A roar, terrific, growing, menacing, filling the echoes, brimming the
+heavy air, rolling out across the still waters of the bay, thundered
+into the silence of the shore. The dim lamps upon the Marina shook;
+crash upon crash echoed from buildings which could not be seen, but
+which terror could picture in all the crude pigments of imagination and
+despair! Beside the boat a huge crack rent the jetty in twain. Stones,
+dashed from the crumbling buildings in the darkness, flung huge gouts of
+spray over the two who wrenched themselves apart in her stern, over
+their prisoners, over the child, who cried aloud in all the agony of
+childish fear.</p>
+
+<p>And then human voices joined the chorus&mdash;voices which expressed every
+intonation of panic, of the horror which is built upon amazement, of the
+unleashed emotions of men awaking to meet blindly the common hazards of
+life and confronting chaos, illimitable ruin, a sudden unbarring of the
+gates of Hell.</p>
+
+<p>The struggle in the boat ceased. Wild curses became, on Luigi's lips, a
+string of piteous appeals to the very saints whose names he had used a
+moment before to point his blasphemies. Miller and Landon grasped the
+oars.</p>
+
+<p>But even the terrors of earthquake do not wreck the discipline of
+Italy's Carbineers. The sergeant's warning was repeated thunderously.</p>
+
+<p>Miller screamed an assent, a surrender. Landon answered with an oath.
+The one endeavored to propel the boat shorewards, the other towards the
+sea. It spun between their efforts; they yelled and gesticulated madly.</p>
+
+<p>And again the sergeant's voice was heard, with a hundred other voices,
+appealing to a God whose mercy was surely turned away.</p>
+
+<p>For a moaning sound <i>tingled</i> along the strand, and then silently, but
+with the speed of a cataract, the sea sank back from the shore.</p>
+
+<p>It plucked half a hundred boats from their anchorages; it gripped them
+down into its trough. For full thirty seconds they fled upon this
+monstrous tide of a tideless sea, hull crashing against hull, mast
+beating against mast, a wrecked wilderness of spars and rigging,
+tangled, coiled, the froth, the scum, as it were, upon that mighty
+crest. And behind them went the <i>Santa Margarita's</i> dingy, with bound
+and free in equal helplessness.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as if the sluice of some Cyclopean lock had been shut, the mighty
+mill-race halted and a mountain grew upon the face of the deep. Huge,
+black, awesome, it swung itself up, swelled higher and higher, hung
+through an æon-long moment of horror, and then rolled back whence it had
+come. And the menace of its coming left no tiniest coign of foothold for
+hope in its path. Irresistible and relentless it moved along to destroy
+every barrier of nature, every man-built obstacle with its might. Its
+foam-plumed crest roared over the quayside and the Marina five fathoms
+deep.</p>
+
+<p>Like a chip upon the surface of a torrent which suddenly hastens to the
+brink of the cascade, the boat and its burden of lives was snatched
+along. The three who stood and gripped its gunwale saw the broad expanse
+of the Marina before them, saw it seem to sink as they themselves rose
+upon the flood, saw how they raced across it twenty feet above the level
+of its flags. And they saw more&mdash;saw it with eyes which seemed to sear
+their brains with anticipation, with despair.</p>
+
+<p>This!</p>
+
+<p>A long, irregular, deep-fronted row of dwellings, square to the sea,
+square to the reeling ridge of ocean which was sweeping upon them as the
+gust sweeps down upon the far-flung autumn leaves.</p>
+
+<p>They called aloud in chorus; they challenged Fate with their despair.
+And Fate replied.</p>
+
+<p>The waters reached the walls; the huge sheet of spray shot high into the
+night. But the dingy passed on uncrushed.</p>
+
+<p>An alley opened before them&mdash;an alley through which they shot on the
+roaring tide into the square beyond, sank down as the dwindling waters
+sank and with their last effort of destruction reached, and were borne
+into an arched opening girt about with trees. And then that, in its
+turn, became a ruin of plaster and planks and stone. The wave completed
+what the earthquake had all too thoroughly begun. The roof and walls
+crashed down into a grim monument upon a living grave.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>DAWN COMES</h3>
+
+
+<p>Out of the darkness of insensibility consciousness came slowly into
+being in Aylmer's brain, but memory lagged to join it. He was
+bound&mdash;that he realized, and his teeth were immovable upon a gag. The
+darkness was absolute and so, for the first few minutes through which
+his senses woke, was the silence. He could feel rough slabs of wood
+which cased his body in. He shifted uneasily and beat his temple upon a
+plank. The sweat of terror broke out upon his brow. He was buried alive!
+God help him! The worst that could happen to a living soul was his
+sentence from the lips of Fate!</p>
+
+<p>Something whimpered in the darkness; something stirred beside his feet.</p>
+
+<p>In a flash came remembrance. The awful moment of disaster through which
+he had been carried, blind, speechless, and bound, became a picture in
+his brain&mdash;a picture the more vivid in that actuality had been hidden
+from him and imagination had supplied details beyond the compass of the
+real. He stirred afresh, he writhed, his bound wrists beat out upon the
+air.</p>
+
+<p>The whimpers ceased and words followed&mdash;words in a child's voice shaken
+by fear. A trembling hand found Aylmer's sleeve, crept up it to his
+cheek, and halted there in miserable hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>"It's me&mdash;it's me!" whispered the voice. "Can't you speak? Oh, can't you
+speak to me?"</p>
+
+<p>And then the wandering fingers found the linen band which bound the gag
+into place and was fastened behind Aylmer's head.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that why?" said the child in eager discovery. "Is <i>that</i> why?"</p>
+
+<p>The band cut into Aylmer's cheek as the knot was twitched with all the
+awkwardness of haste, but a moment later the pressure ceased. He spat
+the gag from between his teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Little John!" he cried. "Little John! Are you hurt? are you able to
+stand?"</p>
+
+<p>The boy clutched him with a sort of desperation of relief.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you <i>can</i> speak&mdash;you <i>can</i> speak!" he shouted joyously. "My head
+aches and my shoulder doesn't move right, but I can stand. I can reach
+nothing above my head&mdash;or right&mdash;or left."</p>
+
+<p>There was a creaking of timber as he moved, stretching his hands, as was
+evident, into the black emptiness about the boat. Aylmer's bound wrists
+were lifted to reach him.</p>
+
+<p>"Pick at them&mdash;as you did before, little John," he said. "Loose me, so
+that we can search the darkness together."</p>
+
+<p>The child's breath came in zealous pants as he tugged and pulled, but
+the knots were tightly lashed and sodden with the sea. And his haste was
+a handicap; he plucked and twisted ineffectually. And finally he
+overbalanced himself and slipped.</p>
+
+<p>He gave a cry of pain.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm hurted&mdash;I'm bleeding!" he sobbed. "I fell against something that
+cut!"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer's heart stood still. If the fall had injured the child severely,
+if it had disabled him, if he were to lose consciousness&mdash;was this
+horror of helplessness to be added to those which already had them in
+their grip? He stretched out his arms towards the sound of the sobbing,
+and this, as he did so, suddenly ceased.</p>
+
+<p>Panic gripped him, only to be fought down. Slowly, and with painful
+effort, he twisted himself round in the darkness till his bound wrists
+found as their goal the child's cap which still covered his untidy mane
+of curls. And these were wet and sticky.</p>
+
+<p>The reason was not far to seek. The baling slipper lay below little
+John's temple&mdash;the baling slipper mended with a rough strip of tin. And
+this had cut through cap and curls, down to the bone. It had finished
+what terror had begun. The boy had fainted.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer's first impulse was to use the whole of his tethered strength in
+bringing consciousness back to the child&mdash;to what was, he considered,
+his only chance of freedom. A moment later chance pointed a quicker
+road. His knuckles met and were scarred by the frayed edge of the tin.
+He gave an exclamation of impatience at his own dulness. What would cut
+him would cut his bonds. Crouching down he managed to grip the slipper
+between his knees and steady it there. And then he rasped his lashings
+upon its edge.</p>
+
+<p>A minute sufficed, or even less. The cord frayed, gave strand by strand,
+and broke apart with a twang. He gasped with relief and fell to work
+upon his ankles. As these bonds loosened and fell away in their turn, he
+stood up, rising slowly and stretching his hands above his head. He
+touched nothing.</p>
+
+<p>He sighed not only with relief, this time, but with a faint tinge of
+hope. And then he bent, felt his way past the still motionless child,
+and touched, by chance's guidance, Claire Van Arlen's hair. And he gave
+another exclamation of self-encouragement. For her cheek was warm.</p>
+
+<p>He plucked the gag from her lips; his hands were already at her wrists
+as she uttered his name. He thrilled to the anxiety in her voice.</p>
+
+<p>"You?" she asked anxiously. "You? You were uninjured. I heard you speak
+and&mdash;and, it seemed, to me that you&mdash;<i>flagged</i>&mdash;that you&mdash;were not you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he answered quietly. "I had not found you then. I did not know&mdash;I
+do not know it yet&mdash;how far you yourself were unhurt."</p>
+
+<p>His fingers were unlashing her feet now. He heard her stir into a
+sitting posture and, as her feet were freed, felt her rise to her knees.
+Instinct bade him thrust out a hand as she did so, and she rocked up
+against it. Her energy had been more than her strength; she leaned
+against him panting.</p>
+
+<p>For a full minute he held her, feeling her pulses throb against his,
+fanned by her breath that panted past his cheek, one hand warm within
+his own, one upon his shoulder. And through the darkness he sent out his
+appeal to Fate. If the grim goddess had no farther favors in her store
+for him, let her hand close upon him there. Might there be no more weary
+struggles; might the end find him and the girl whose hand clung to his
+in this intimate protection at once. Let death come in that moment, and
+he would ask no more.</p>
+
+<p>Fate gave no answer and the moment passed.</p>
+
+<p>She gave a little sob and, still holding him, staggered to her feet.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the stiffness, and the long hours bound. And the
+anxiety&mdash;for&mdash;for you!" she murmured. "I am unhurt, indeed I am unhurt.
+I have scarcely so much as a bruise upon me. And my chatelaine? That is
+still at my waist. I have&mdash;have matches, if the sea water has spared
+them!"</p>
+
+<p>Light! Could they pierce this wall of darkness; could they actually hope
+to see how and where they were caged? He scarcely dared to breathe as he
+heard her silver chain of trinkets tinkle, and heard the rasp of the
+match-head on the box. The red spark sputtered against the blackness and
+then flared into yellow being as the wax took flame. They looked about
+them with more than curiosity. With awe.</p>
+
+<p>High above their head was an arch of masonry, massively mortised,
+curving from a wall to a row of squat, solid pillars; and these last
+flanked a pile of heaped rubble and stone. They were in a passage some
+twenty feet long, closed at each end as the unwalled side was closed by
+the wreck of the house above. It was a cloister. And the open courtyard
+which it had rimmed was now a stupendous rubbish heap, massed high above
+their heads with ruin.</p>
+
+<p>They looked down. They still stood in the boat, and at Aylmer's feet the
+child was huddled in unconsciousness, the blood still welling slowly
+from the cut on his brow. Beyond them something indefinite and
+unrecognizable lay in a dark heap upon the flags.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer stepped forward and bent over it.</p>
+
+<p>It was the body of a man, clothed in the dark, red-striped uniform of
+the Carbineers. His lips were grim and set. His right hand still
+clutched the breach of a rifle. And at his belt was a lantern&mdash;the glass
+broken, but the tin intact. Aylmer's hands trembled as they fell upon
+this prize.</p>
+
+<p>He wheeled back to his companion and touched the flame against the wick.
+There was a moment's suspense, and then they sighed in chorus. For the
+oil was unspilt. For a time, at least, darkness was not to be among the
+terrors which menaced them.</p>
+
+<p>Claire knelt and pulled the child upon her knee. She stanched the blood;
+she dropped her handkerchief into the little pool of sea water which was
+fast draining through the wrenched seams of the boat, and gently laved
+the unconscious face. Little John stirred drowsily, opened his eyes
+reluctantly, and looked up with wonder into her face.</p>
+
+<p>He put his hand up weakly to his temple.</p>
+
+<p>"It's&mdash;it's queer&mdash;and&mdash;and hurty," he whispered. "Muhammed? He would
+make it well."</p>
+
+<p>She pulled him to her tenderly.</p>
+
+<p>"Does it hurt badly?" she asked. "Muhammed hasn't come to us&mdash;yet."</p>
+
+<p>He looked wonderingly around him.</p>
+
+<p>"The house&mdash;opened&mdash;and let us right in," he mused. "We came up on the
+sea&mdash;right up&mdash;as fast as a train. And Dad? Dad was with us then."</p>
+
+<p>She looked up questioningly at Aylmer. And he had gathered up the dead
+Carbineer's cloak and was arranging it against the stern. He made a
+motion towards it.</p>
+
+<p>"Sleep is all the medicine we can give him," he advised. "Let him rest.
+Meanwhile we must use the light while we have it."</p>
+
+<p>She nodded quickly and laid the child gently down. He smiled at her
+drowsily again, whispered a half-distinguishable appeal to be told when
+the Moor "came back," and then nature's healing hand closed over his
+eyes. He slept&mdash;the deep, dead sleep of exhaustion.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer raised the lamp. Together they paced the length of their prison.</p>
+
+<p>The gray flags were bare except where the Carbineer's body lay. With a
+little gesture of compassion, Aylmer straightened the stiffening limbs,
+and covered the stern, unfaltering face with the dead man's
+handkerchief. And then they passed on, to confront the hill of rubble
+which closed the cloister's end. And here they halted, as they looked
+down.</p>
+
+<p>Claire shuddered.</p>
+
+<p>A gray sleeve emerged from the stones and an open hand seemed to appeal
+for the help which came all too late. Aylmer dragged fiercely at the
+ruined wall. A block or two became unseated. These shouldered out others
+to rumble at their feet.</p>
+
+<p>A gray-clad body became exposed. They looked at it, instinct preparing
+them to recognize what they saw. Battered and disfigured though it was,
+they knew it for Miller's face.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment they kept silence, looking at it fixedly. The eyes were
+open, but death had wiped out from them the imperturbability which they
+had held through life. Fear had gripped the gray man at the last. Horror
+had been with him&mdash;even panic.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer leaned down and covered the fear-haunted eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"He has gone, and taken his mystery with him," he said. "What his life
+was we shall never ascertain. What led him to betray us? That is beyond
+our learning. It may have been no more than fear and the desire to save
+himself. I think there was something behind it all that has escaped us,
+but"&mdash;he shrugged his shoulders as he looked about him&mdash;"what does it
+matter now?"</p>
+
+<p>He held the lantern at arm's length as he spoke, and looked searchingly
+round. The gray stone ringed them in relentlessly. Was there any
+expedient in which they could find a challenge to the arbitrary decree
+of Fate? He saw none.</p>
+
+<p>The girl at his side watched him. And then her eyes met his. And as he
+spoke his voice was strangely gentle.</p>
+
+<p>"God interfered between Landon and his evil purpose, as you said He
+would. Perhaps, who knows, He may have other mercies reserved for us.
+But in any case we must teach each other to be strong."</p>
+
+<p>She nodded gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"We are in His hands," she said, "and nothing can be as terrible as what
+was threatened us by that vile man. The boy is safe. I have the help of
+your presence. We must kill imagination with work."</p>
+
+<p>He looked about him again, doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Work?" he questioned. "Have we the chance to work?"</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it obvious," she said. "That is a courtyard. Above the ruins
+which brim it is the sky. If we use our strength and time to pluck a way
+through that to life again, we shall, at least, not think."</p>
+
+<p>He paced forward a yard or two and examined the heaped wreckage of
+plaster, wooden beams, and stones. He hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"If we disturb it, there is just a chance of making our situation
+worse," he hazarded.</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said significantly. "Not worse. God might answer us that way,
+and save us suspense. And we shall, at any rate, have defied Fate to the
+end."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said. "In that I am with you; we will do our best&mdash;to the
+last. And if God's purpose falls upon us quickly, Claire, I thank Him
+here and now that He has permitted me to share this bitter cup with you,
+instead of draining that more bitter one which threatened an hour ago.
+At least I am not leaving you in Landon's hands, alone."</p>
+
+<p>"And I am not helpless while they work their vile wills upon you," she
+answered. "Fate has been cruel enough, but she has spared us that. The
+end? That is still her mystery. Let us forget it."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"There is much I can remember which will spare me that. What you have
+been and done for me these last wild days&mdash;my memory will occupy itself
+with that and hope&mdash;while I work to make hope true."</p>
+
+<p>And then, still smiling as if he had plumbed the eyes of Hope and found
+in them an answering smile, he laid the lantern on the flags and put his
+hands upon the barrier of ruin which faced him.</p>
+
+<p>He toiled vigorously but with caution. As he rolled the larger blocks
+from their resting-place, he was quick to notice and to support the
+beams or flagstones which they had buttressed with their weight. And he
+used the first plank which tumbled out of the chaos as a lever upon its
+fellows. At his feet Claire worked vigorously, sweeping out the plaster
+which filled the openings as he made them, rolling aside the unseated
+stones to give him room, lending her lesser strength to aid his, when
+some task was trying his powers to the utmost.</p>
+
+<p>For a couple of hours they toiled silently, and a gap had been hewn into
+the debris&mdash;a gap which seemed to be ceaselessly filled as the
+accumulations rolled into it from above, but an opening, nevertheless,
+which spoke of progress, which showed a reward for effort, which even
+pictured, faintly and indistinctly, a vision of hope. If their strength
+lasted? Was there not a chance, a tiny, elusive, but possible chance?</p>
+
+<p>It was the remembrance that uninterrupted effort would fatigue them to a
+point where their strength would be taxed beyond recovery which made
+Aylmer at last call a halt. They went and sat beside the sleeping child.
+To economize the light, they extinguished the lamp.</p>
+
+<p>And then&mdash;they rubbed their eyes.</p>
+
+<p>A tiny beam of light, dim, faint, gray but distinguishable, was filtered
+down into their prison at the point where one of the cloister pillars
+reached an arch. It fell upon the flags in a little circle.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer reached it in two strides. He gave an exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a pipe from the spouting of the roof," he cried. "I see the sky.
+I see the sky!"</p>
+
+<p>She was at his side in an instant. In her turn she looked up into the
+hollow of the tube, to see light. She gave a little gasp.</p>
+
+<p>"It's wonderful&mdash;wonderful!" she breathed. "Only that little way up&mdash;ten
+feet, twelve, perhaps, and freedom. And we are here!"</p>
+
+<p>"It means two things of infinite importance!" he rejoined. "Air and, in
+all probability, water. If the gutter which discharges into this is
+still intact, we shall receive the rain when it comes. And after
+earthquake it comes, invariably."</p>
+
+<p>She was not paying him attention. Her eye was still fixed below the tiny
+opening; she continued to look up as if the tiny disc of brightness
+fascinated her, as if she would drink draughts of the outer air thus
+delivered to them as if from an immense cistern.</p>
+
+<p>And then the emotion of sudden discovery illuminated her face.</p>
+
+<p>"We can signal!" she cried. "We can attract attention! We have only to
+thrust a rod up through that, and it will tell our tale. Surely there
+are rescuers at work by now; a whole city cannot be left to its fate!"</p>
+
+<p>His eyes glistened.</p>
+
+<p>"God sent that thought to you&mdash;God himself!" he cried. "We must have a
+rod; we must make one!" He turned and re-lit the lantern. He examined
+the splintered woodwork of the boat with a calculating eye.</p>
+
+<p>Wood was at their service in plenty, but the tools to deal with it were
+wanting. Neither of them possessed a knife. He searched the pockets of
+the dead, but had no success. For a moment they stood regarding each
+other in incredulous despair. Surely Fate, after bracing them with this
+hope, was not going to torture them by withdrawal? And then Aylmer's eye
+fell upon the baling slipper.</p>
+
+<p>He lifted it with a gesture of relief; he tore the strip of tin from off
+it and held it up.</p>
+
+<p>"That is our blade!" he cried. "We have only to pare down splinters till
+they will pass through the pipe, and the thing is done."</p>
+
+<p>He picked up a piece of planking as he spoke, worked the metal into the
+grain till a split began to gape, and then, wrapping a piece of
+tarpaulin round each end of his impromptu blade, worked it to and fro
+and downwards. A thin sliver of wood was the result&mdash;one about eighteen
+inches long.</p>
+
+<p>He repeated the operation, slowly and carefully. As each lath was split
+and pared, he passed it to his companion and she spliced the ends with
+strips of gray cloth. And these? Aylmer took them from the dead body at
+the end of the cloister. Miller, in death, was helping to repair some of
+the injuries for which his life was responsible.</p>
+
+<p>They worked methodically, without haste, but with every care. Two hours
+later they had a twelve-foot staff laid out at their feet. To the top
+they attached a little flag, also of gray. They divided it into halves,
+thrust the upper half into the pipe, attached the lower one to it, and
+then pushed the whole upwards to the full extent of Aylmer's reach.
+Claire peered anxiously into the hole. She gave a great cry of relief;
+her eyes filled with sudden tears.</p>
+
+<p>"The flag is outside!" she cried. "There is no doubt of that; it is a
+certainty. While it was wrapped round the head of the staff inside the
+tube, it hid all light from me. And now light has come again&mdash;dim, but
+there still. It slips down between the staff and the sides. The flag is
+out in the air&mdash;the air!"</p>
+
+<p>He nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"All that remains, then, is to keep it moving&mdash;to show that human beings
+are holding its other end. We must work ceaselessly."</p>
+
+<p>He looked round at her as he spoke. Her eyes were bent on him earnestly,
+meditatively. And there was something in her gaze for which he had no
+clue.</p>
+
+<p>She spoke, and so supplied it herself.</p>
+
+<p>"I think we shall be rescued now," she said quietly. "I feel a certainty
+about it, an instinct. Yes, I think we have defeated Fate. We shall come
+back into life again, you and I."</p>
+
+<p>He understood. Through the wild days in the boat and on the island, Fate
+had given no chance for either of them to probe the future. Hope had
+had so tiny a place in their thoughts&mdash;hopelessness had so immeasurably
+absorbed them all. And now? Was she allowing herself to dwell on life as
+it would affect them untouched by Fate, and free? Was she mentally
+rearranging her attitude to him?</p>
+
+<p>Fate would supply her own answer. He turned and doggedly began to work
+the flagstaff up and down.</p>
+
+<p>A tension of silence was over them as they waited. The hours went by.
+With a little gesture she came, took the pole from his hand, and bade
+him rest. He surrendered it quietly, spent ten minutes in massaging his
+stiffened muscles, and then took it again. It was queer, this sudden
+reticence which had arisen between them. It was as if while Fate delayed
+to speak, all other words were futile. And her answer might come at any
+moment or&mdash;God help them&mdash;not at all.</p>
+
+<p>The hours lengthened. The thin rays which still filtered through the
+half-closed pipe grew dim and at last died altogether. Night had come.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer turned with a little shrug, placed a plank beneath the butt of
+the staff to keep it in position, and came back to the boat.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no need to fatigue ourselves through the darkness," he said.
+"Till daylight shows our flag again, we had better rest, to be strong
+for to-morrow. Shall we sleep?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him curiously, and then answered with a little nod.</p>
+
+<p>"Sleep," she agreed. "You are tired, tired. And wake strong; your
+strength&mdash;God knows&mdash;has been tried enough."</p>
+
+<p>There was something restrained in her voice; something which again
+escaped his comprehension, but his fatigue was overmastering. He
+stretched himself upon a couple of flags. Sleep overcame him instantly.</p>
+
+<p>Was it a moment later that he awoke in answer to her cry? So he
+believed, but as a matter of fact midnight was long past. She had lit a
+match; she was holding it to the wick of the lantern.</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes were wide and bright with excitement. She pointed towards the
+pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"I could not rest!" she cried. "No, I could not sleep and know that
+rescue might be passing by. I have worked at the staff ceaselessly and
+now! Now it is gone!"</p>
+
+<p>He sprang towards her.</p>
+
+<p>"Gone!" he repeated. "Gone!"</p>
+
+<p>"They are there&mdash;above us&mdash;men&mdash;men who know we are here. They pulled it
+up, out of my hands!" She made a gesture which pled for silence.
+"Listen!" she cried. "Listen!"</p>
+
+<p>A tinkling sound came from the pipe and then a tiny bottle sank into
+view, dangling from a string. He seized it. It was warm.</p>
+
+<p>"Soup!" he cried. "Food! That is their first thought for us! And I had
+forgotten that I was starving. I had forgotten it absolutely!"</p>
+
+<p>He held it to her lips. She put out her hand in protest, but his gesture
+was inexorable. She gave a queer little laugh, shrugged her shoulders,
+and drank. He took the half she left him and drank in his turn. He tied
+the bottle again to the string and shook it. It disappeared and was
+lowered again, this time with wine. And half a dozen little rolls
+dropped at their feet. They ate, they waked the child and fed him, they
+sat, and from above the sound of pick and mattock in the hands of men
+who toiled furiously thundered down to them. They speculated how and
+whence the first sight of rescue would appear. They laughed in high,
+excited tones. Expectancy had them in its grip to the exclusion of all
+other emotions.</p>
+
+<p>And then, with a sudden roar and crash, an avalanche of rubble poured
+into the hole which they had dug into the mass of debris. And with it
+came a man in sailor uniform who mixed anathema and congratulation in
+excited but fluent French. He wept, he fell upon Aylmer's neck and
+embraced him, he kissed the child and Claire's hand. Slowly they toiled
+at his heels, helped by a dangling rope, out into the red glare of a
+dozen torches which were held by seamen of the French Marine.</p>
+
+<p>And one of the two officers who directed them called upon the name of
+God and all His saints to emphasize his amazement.</p>
+
+<p>It was Rattier who held and shook their hands a hundred times. Rattier,
+incoherent, swearing, every vestige of his taciturnity ravished from him
+by emotion, plying them with a thousand questions, raining tears upon
+little John Aylmer's wondering face.</p>
+
+<p>They reached the market square. They looked upon the ruin which covered
+the devastated earth in the wan light of the slowly coming dawn.</p>
+
+<p>Five miles away, swinging at her mooring opposite the ruined port of
+Messina was a white-hulled boat&mdash;a boat which they looked at with
+wistfully incredulous eyes. They whispered her name.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>The Morning Star?</i>" they wondered. "<i>The Morning Star?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"What else?" cried the commandant, exultantly. "That Spanish torpedo
+boat&mdash;did you think nothing was to be heard from her? You disappeared.
+Two days later comes the news from Malaga of a felucca, going east with
+prisoners on board. Would that not induce your father, Mademoiselle, to
+put two and two together? The Melilla port authorities supplied the name
+of that felucca and her destination&mdash;Sicily. He arrived two days back. I
+have seen him, we spoke together, and then God knows all our energies
+and thoughts have been with these poor wretches ashore. Down in Messina
+your own countrymen and the Russians are doing marvels. The <i>Diomède</i>
+was the only French ship, alas, in harbor, but we have others coming
+from Tunis, from Algiers, from Marseilles. We need every worker we can
+get. What you have suffered thousands are suffering still."</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer gave a quick, decided little nod. He looked at Claire.</p>
+
+<p>"You will let one of these sailors see you on board?" he said. "Paul
+will spare one to escort you."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him, startled, a little bewildered, even.</p>
+
+<p>"And you?" she asked. "And you?"</p>
+
+<p>He made a gesture towards the chaos which covered shore and hill.</p>
+
+<p>"Can I leave the work which calls me, knowing what I know?" he asked.
+"Paul has put my duty into words. What I have suffered, others are
+suffering yet. Would you think well of me, if I left it?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him with a smile that told of appreciation, approval, of
+something (or was hope a lying glass?) more than these.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" she said quietly. "No!" She hesitated a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"And when I have found my father, eased his mind, delivered to him his
+grandchild whom he owes to you, rested, made myself strong to work, will
+you come for me to do my part? Will you come&mdash;then?"</p>
+
+<p>As the dawn rose over Messina's city of the dead, in John Aylmer's heart
+rose the dawn of hope fulfilled. Her eyes? What message did they not
+give? He read it as plainly as he knew he would read it at their next
+meeting&mdash;from her lips.</p>
+
+<p>He lifted her hand. His moustache swept it.</p>
+
+<p>"Till then, Claire," he whispered. "Till then, Beloved."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>SHADOWS GO</h3>
+
+
+<p>Dawn flushed into full daylight as the sun rose upon the ruined city.
+Morning dragged its length to midday and midday merged in afternoon. And
+the workers toiled on doggedly, burrowing, hewing, climbing, flinging
+their energies, risking their lives, against the inanimate barriers of
+destruction. Italian and Frenchman, Englishman and Russian vied with
+each other in deeds of humanity against the common foe. Nor was that foe
+content with the victory already won. Further shocks furrowed the
+stricken shores: ruin became more complete, danger more menacing, but
+the toilers worked on.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer's rescuers had gone aboard their ship and had been replaced by a
+new relay. He himself remained. The pressing needs of those who lay, as
+he had lain, in living tombs around him were first in his mind. But
+another thought was ceaseless. Certainty&mdash;that was what he asked.
+Certainty of Landon's fate. He scarcely allowed himself to realize how
+he hoped&mdash;<i>yearned</i>&mdash;to know definitely that Landon was dead. He simply
+contemplated it as a matter of completeness, as news that would bring
+infinite relief to those on board <i>The Morning Star</i>. If he were alive?
+He set his lips grimly. Though law was suspended, order out of gear,
+Landon should meet his deserts. If not by instruments of Italian
+justice, then by Aylmer's own hands&mdash;by the law of retribution, not the
+law of revenge.</p>
+
+<p>He dropped the mattock which he had been wielding. He stood up and
+straightened himself, turning his eyes from the wearying expanse of
+wreckage towards the sea.</p>
+
+<p>A boat was running up beside the ruined jetty. Before the mooring ropes
+were cast ashore a tall figure leaped from it&mdash;a figure clad in a
+<i>soutane</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer made an exclamation, hesitated, and then clambered down the walls
+and ran across the uneven flags, holding out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Padre Sigismondi flung up his arms. His gesture was one of incredulous
+relief.</p>
+
+<p>"But the Signora?" he cried, stricken with sudden apprehension. He
+panted, his eyes were vivid with anxiety. "The Signora?"</p>
+
+<p>As Aylmer answered with the one vital word, the priest cried aloud
+again. He lifted his face towards the sky and made the sign of the
+cross.</p>
+
+<p>"Safe!" he repeated. "Safe! If there was a single hope left to me amid
+the horrors which have overwhelmed us, it was that. I told myself that
+God, who allowed me to fail in my duty to you through my arrogant
+self-confidence, might be saving you in the midst of&mdash;and by&mdash;this
+destruction. When I came to myself and found you gone, I writhed. My
+friend, I cast myself upon the ground in the agonies of my
+self-reproach. Not to have plumbed the wicked devices of these men&mdash;I,
+who have worked among them a score of years!"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer gripped his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"You, yourself?" he inquired. "You come here&mdash;how?"</p>
+
+<p>"One of the many boats which were speeding to Messina&mdash;some, alas, with
+no charitable intent, I fear&mdash;saw my signals and took me off. And now?
+One scarcely knows where to begin. How can one confront such a disaster
+with one's puny efforts? God send me His strength! My own is as water!"</p>
+
+<p>A shout echoed to them suddenly from the group of sailors. One stood up
+and waved to them with his neckcloth.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer made an answering gesture. He took the priest's arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Begin here, father," he said quietly. "Some of those we have found are
+alive, but death's claim, I fear, is relaxed for no more than an hour or
+two. They need your offices. It may be for such an one that they are
+signalling to us now."</p>
+
+<p>They hurried across the square. They climbed the pyramid of ruin.</p>
+
+<p>The sailors were looking down at something which lay at their
+feet&mdash;something brown, and white, and vivid red.</p>
+
+<p>The quartermaster pointed to a crevice in the masonry.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a hollow," he explained. "We pulled him out by the arms,
+which&mdash;God forgive us&mdash;are broken. There are in there, perhaps, others.
+His eyes imply it. Words are beyond him."</p>
+
+<p>The priest gave a startled exclamation. Aylmer echoed it. Disfigured,
+battered, crushed as it was, they recognized the figure in the
+blood-stained <i>djelab</i> of brown.</p>
+
+<p>A growing dimness was clouding Muhammed's eyes. The quick pant of his
+breathing weakened as they watched. But a flash of feeling illuminated
+the pallid features as the Moor's glance reached and dwelled upon
+Aylmer's face.</p>
+
+<p>His lips moved.</p>
+
+<p>"The child?" he asked in a faint whisper. "The Sidi Jan?"</p>
+
+<p>Padre Sigismondi darted an inquiring look at his companion and then
+knelt beside the dying man.</p>
+
+<p>"The child is well," he answered gravely. "Yourself? Is there no message
+to give, no delivery of your soul you wish to make? Time is short for
+you. Use it, and me, as you wish."</p>
+
+<p>The brown eyes searched the priest's features with a queer disdain, as
+it seemed&mdash;or was it, perchance, compassion. The stiffening lips became
+more grimly resolute.</p>
+
+<p>"I proclaim!" said the Moor. "I proclaim that there is One God&mdash;One
+God&mdash;," and passed, unfaltering, to meet Him.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment there was silence. Aylmer broke it.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps we owe him more than we think," he said slowly. "The boy? That
+was always his first care. Perhaps he stood between the child and harm.
+I believe that he would have done so in the face of the child's father
+himself!"</p>
+
+<p>Sigismondi drew a fold of the <i>djelab</i> over the bruised face.</p>
+
+<p>"The God to whom he appealed is his judge," he said. "Let us leave it in
+His hands. The living, now, my friend. It is not here that we can
+concern ourselves with the dead."</p>
+
+<p>They turned to the sailors. Half a dozen blocks had been rolled from the
+opening, which gaped wide over an empty darkness. The quartermaster
+slung himself carefully down into it and slowly disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>A moment later they heard his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"A rope," he demanded. "Here is one who is, at least, warm."</p>
+
+<p>They passed down a rope carefully. Aylmer's heart became suddenly
+audible to himself. What would appear; what had Fate still in store for
+him?</p>
+
+<p>Again the quartermaster's voice echoed from the darkness with
+directions. The sailors bent their backs and hauled.</p>
+
+<p>A face appeared in the opening, travelling upwards.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer felt no surprise. This was the expected, the inevitable. Landon
+was dragged out into the day&mdash;Landon&mdash;alive.</p>
+
+<p>They laid him silently at his cousin's feet.</p>
+
+<p>And as Aylmer looked down he felt a thrill of what must have been nearly
+akin to sympathy. God help the mutilated wretch!</p>
+
+<p>His arms hung beside him limp and helpless, the fractured bones
+distorted in hideous angles. There were marks as of burns upon his face.
+But the supreme horror was in the sockets which held nothing
+recognizable as human eyes. Coals might have lain within them&mdash;coals
+pressed down to find their quenching there.</p>
+
+<p>He moaned ceaselessly, swinging himself from side to side. And then
+words came slowly, piteously, one by one.</p>
+
+<p>"Oil!" he gasped. "For God's sake, a little oil&mdash;upon my eyes!"</p>
+
+<p>Sigismondi shuddered. Then he bent and placed his hand compassionately
+on the scarred temple.</p>
+
+<p>"As soon as it can be found, my brother," he said. "Try to keep your
+courage while we do our utmost. We have to carry you&mdash;where you can be
+treated."</p>
+
+<p>The tortured wretch moaned again and made an instinctive effort to raise
+a hand to his face. He shrieked as the shattered bones failed him,
+shrieked and cursed in hideous blasphemies. His brain began to wander
+upon the border-line of delirium.</p>
+
+<p>"Hours&mdash;days&mdash;weeks," he wailed. "Broken&mdash;broken! Immovable and always
+in agony&mdash;burning&mdash;my eyes&mdash;my eyes! And the rain&mdash;running over them
+and bringing more agony&mdash;and more&mdash;and more. And unable to move a
+finger. My feet hanging in emptiness&mdash;my hands crushed in upon
+me&mdash;crushed&mdash;crushed&mdash;crushed!"</p>
+
+<p>The quartermaster made a gesture of infinite compassion.</p>
+
+<p>"The room had been newly plastered, do you see?" he whispered. "He was
+caught bodily&mdash;in the closing of the walls&mdash;as a nutcracker closes. And
+he was held and crushed&mdash;like the nut. The lime was deep upon his
+face&mdash;and when the rain came, washing it in&mdash;eating him&mdash;" He turned
+away with another pregnant motion of his hands, as if he put from him
+the picture which imagination conjured up.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer leaned down and spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"We are going to take you from here," he said. "We are going to lift
+you. Be prepared."</p>
+
+<p>Landon's groans ceased. His body became suddenly rigid with attention.</p>
+
+<p>"Jack?" he whispered incredulously. "Jack?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is I," said Aylmer gravely. "I&mdash;am unhurt."</p>
+
+<p>Landon's face grew yet more distorted.</p>
+
+<p>"Claire?" he muttered eagerly. "Claire&mdash;is gone?"</p>
+
+<p>A light gleamed tempestuously in Aylmer's eyes and then as quickly died.
+His voice was even and restrained.</p>
+
+<p>"She is safe, and well," he said. "She is on her father's yacht."</p>
+
+<p>An inarticulate howl of rage burst from Landon's lips. He rocked himself
+to and fro; he made as if he would beat his broken hands upon the
+stones.</p>
+
+<p>"God! If they'd suffered alongside me, if they'd been there, if they had
+given me groan for groan, I could have stood it&mdash;enjoyed it&mdash;damn them,
+I could have laughed with the lime in my eyes, if they'd been there&mdash;if
+they'd been there!"</p>
+
+<p>He jerked himself to a sitting posture; he writhed backwards and
+forwards. His spite was a sort of ecstasy, possessing him, freeing him,
+as it seemed, from even the sense of pain.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer made a significant motion. He bent and slipped his arms beneath
+Landon's shoulders. The quartermaster lifted his knees.</p>
+
+<p>Landon struggled in their arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me be!" he cried. "Let me stand. Damn you, let me stand upon my own
+feet!"</p>
+
+<p>They hesitated. Then with a shrug the quartermaster laid down his
+burden.</p>
+
+<p>"This is no place for a blind man to pick his way," he remonstrated. "To
+get down, Monsieur, you have to poise yourself along the wall thirty
+feet above the square."</p>
+
+<p>Landon stood panting and leaning against his cousin. The spasms of agony
+were convulsing his face.</p>
+
+<p>"I will not be carried," he panted. "I'll walk upon my feet&mdash;like a
+man."</p>
+
+<p>They looked at each other, hesitating.</p>
+
+<p>"But your arms?" protested Aylmer. "Your arms?"</p>
+
+<p>The breath hissed between Landon's teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"My arms!" he repeated. "God! If I'd my arms! You&mdash;you must lead
+me&mdash;carefully&mdash;carefully. Put your hand upon my shoulder; keep
+close&mdash;close."</p>
+
+<p>For a dozen yards he tottered along, and the sweat broke out astream
+upon his scars. And then he halted, and stumbled.</p>
+
+<p>The quartermaster instinctively put a hand upon one of the broken
+wrists. Landon shrieked, and cursed him hideously.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur might have fallen," apologized the man. "My excuses, Monsieur,
+but it was so quick&mdash;so near&mdash;the danger. The drop is sheer, do you see,
+sheer down to the square."</p>
+
+<p>Landon gasped. "Which side?" he asked thickly. "Which side?"</p>
+
+<p>"The right," said Aylmer. "Lean away from me, inwards, to the left!"</p>
+
+<p>Landon drew a deep breath.</p>
+
+<p>The next instant he had flung himself against Aylmer's guiding hand,
+outwards, to the right!</p>
+
+<p>For the second time the quartermaster cried aloud and stretched out a
+hand. But it was not Landon's sleeve which it reached, but
+Aylmer's&mdash;reached and gripped it while the two bodies reeled upon the
+crumbling edge and sent the flying blocks down to break into powder upon
+the solid flags below.</p>
+
+<p>And then, where two had struggled, one alone remained and clung. Landon
+had gone. Like the blocks he lay thirty feet below&mdash;broken.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>FATE SMILES AT LAST</h3>
+
+
+<p>A pall of mist and driving rain closed upon the city as evening fell, as
+if Nature flung a veil between herself and the handiwork of her
+passions. Through it the launch of the <i>Diomède</i> threaded the network of
+the shipping.</p>
+
+<p>Warmly red against the ghost-like paintwork, the ports of <i>The Morning
+Star</i> beamed up out of the smother. Aylmer held up his hand. Silently,
+with stopped engines, the boat slid up to the accommodation ladder, and
+as silently Aylmer swung himself aboard.</p>
+
+<p>With a gesture of farewell to the boat's crew and one of greeting to the
+sailor at the gangway head, he passed into the companion and went below.
+In the doorway of the saloon he halted.</p>
+
+<p>Two figures sat at the table, a picture book open before them. Claire's
+arm was about her little nephew's shoulder. His face was turned up to
+hers, but his finger still pointed to the page which they had been
+studying.</p>
+
+<p>"And was he brave, enormously brave?" he was asking. "As brave as&mdash;as
+Muhammed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Braver than Muhammed," she said quietly. "Because he was&mdash;good."</p>
+
+<p>He debated a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"As brave as the pig man, then?" he suggested. "He's been good, always?"</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer stepped forward.</p>
+
+<p>"Not always," he said smiling. "Not even often. But just as much as he
+knew how to be."</p>
+
+<p>The glances which met his were startled but full of welcome. With a
+cackle of delight little John ran from his seat.</p>
+
+<p>"It's him, himself&mdash;the pig man!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>Aylmer smiled and held out his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Then he turned.</p>
+
+<p>In Claire's eyes the surprise had vanished. They were full of inquiry,
+of an agony of question. Her lips were pale and faltered over the words
+which would not come.</p>
+
+<p>He nodded, gravely, significantly.</p>
+
+<p>She gave a little gasp. The color rushed to her cheeks, flooded to her
+brow. As if some strong chord of tension had broken in her breast, she
+leaned against the table, quivering.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Aylmer, quietly. "That shadow is lifted from our lives. He
+is gone&mdash;God's hand fell upon him&mdash;as you told him it would. The future
+of this life," he laid his fingers tenderly upon the child's head, "is
+in your hands now." He paused. "And my life, Claire&mdash;that is yours, too,
+to deal with, as you will."</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her head.</p>
+
+<p>The wave of emotion had passed and left her calm again. The haggardness,
+the anxious lines, were smoothed. Only in her eyes remained the mist of
+unshed tears. And as the mist sinks from the face of the risen sun, so
+the shadow of passed sorrow fled before her dawning smile. Slowly she
+came towards him.</p>
+
+<p>With a sigh of infinite content her hands reached out to&mdash;and placed
+their surrender in&mdash;his.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="By_E_PHILLIPS_OPPENHEIM" id="By_E_PHILLIPS_OPPENHEIM"></a>By E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM</h2>
+
+
+<h3>THE ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE</h3>
+
+<p>Mr. Oppenheim's new story is a narrative of mystery and international
+intrigue that carries the reader breathless from page to page. It is the
+tale of the secret and world-startling methods employed by the Emperor
+of Japan through Prince Maiyo, his close kinsman, to ascertain the real
+reasons for the around-the-world cruise of the American fleet. The
+American Ambassador in London and the Duke of Denvenham, an influential
+Englishman, work hand in hand to circumvent the Oriental plot, which
+proceeds mysteriously to the last page. From the time when Mr. Hamilton
+Fynes steps from the <i>Lusitania</i> into a special tug, in his mad rush
+towards London, to the very end, the reader is carried from deep mystery
+to tense situations, until finally the explanation is reached in a most
+unexpected and unusual climax.</p>
+
+<p>No man of this generation has so much facility of expression, so many
+technical resources, or so fine a power of narration as Mr. E. Phillips
+Oppenheim.&mdash;<i>Philadelphia Inquirer.</i></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Oppenheim is a past master of the art of constructing ingenious
+plots and weaving them around attractive characters.&mdash;<i>London Morning
+Post.</i></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="By_ANTHONY_PARTRIDGE" id="By_ANTHONY_PARTRIDGE"></a>By ANTHONY PARTRIDGE</h2>
+
+<h3>The Author of "The Kingdom of Earth"</h3>
+
+
+<h3>PASSERS-BY</h3>
+
+<p>This new novel by Anthony Partridge, whose absorbing romance, "The
+Kingdom of Earth," met with instant favor, has London for its scene. But
+when you have read it you will admit that real London, as well as
+imaginary Bergeland, is a source of fascinating romance.</p>
+
+<p>The heroine of "Passers-By" is a street singer, Christine, who comes to
+London accompanied by Ambrose Drake, a hunchback, with a piano and a
+monkey. The fortunes of these two are strangely linked with those of an
+English statesman, the Marquis of Ellingham, who in his youth has led a
+wild and criminal career in Paris as the leader of a band of thieves and
+gamblers, the Black Foxes. Here is the material for a thrilling tale in
+which mystery breeds adventure and culminates in love.</p>
+
+<p>The first chapter plunges the reader into an interest-compelling maze of
+events, and the attention is held to the end by a series of dramatic
+situations and surprises.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Partridge is now reckoned among the favorite novelists of the day.
+His first book was "The Distributors," the story of a great London
+mystery. Then came "The Kingdom of Earth," one of the popular novels of
+1909. "Passers-By" is his third book.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="By_JOHN_IRONSIDE" id="By_JOHN_IRONSIDE"></a><i>By</i> JOHN IRONSIDE</h2>
+
+<h3>THE RED SYMBOL</h3>
+
+<h3><i>A Swiftly Moving Mystery Story</i></h3>
+
+
+<p>Here is a tale of love, mystery, and adventure, that opens with a rush
+and holds the interest unflagging to the end. If you like a stirring
+love story, prepare to be fascinated by the charming but baffling
+heroine; if you enjoy an absorbing mystery, be ready to cudgel your
+brains over a perplexing one; if you care for adventures that thrill,
+follow Maurice Wynn through the mad whirl of events that befall him when
+he goes to Russia and becomes involved with a secret society of
+Nihilists. Better yet, if you're fond of a rattling good yarn, one which
+combines all three elements, love, mystery, and action, in just the
+right proportions, take up "The Red Symbol," and when you have turned
+the last page, with nerves all tingling, you will regret that you're not
+just starting.</p>
+
+<p>This swiftly moving narrative promises to be one of the most popular
+novels of 1910.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="By_MRS_CHARLES_N_CREWDSON" id="By_MRS_CHARLES_N_CREWDSON"></a>By MRS. CHARLES N. CREWDSON</h2>
+
+<h3>AN AMERICAN BABY ABROAD</h3>
+
+
+<p>When the American baby's mother hurries off from London to Egypt, where
+her husband is ill with fever, the baby, in company with its colored
+nurse and a friend of its mother's, follows more leisurely. The trio
+stop at Oberammergau to see the Passion Play, in Rome to witness a
+special mass conducted by Pope Leo,&mdash;in a word, do more or less
+sightseeing, until they finally reach Cairo, where much more exciting
+events befall them. The description of the places they visit is enhanced
+by a pleasant vein of humor, and an attractive love episode sustains the
+interest. It is an extremely entertaining story, light and vivacious,
+with brisk dialogue and diverting situations&mdash;just the book for summer
+reading.</p>
+
+<p>A series of characteristic pictures, by the well-known artist, Mr. R. F.
+Outcault, and Modest Stein gives additional charm to the volume.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PURSUIT***</p>
+<p>******* This file should be named 34861-h.txt or 34861-h.zip *******</p>
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+<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/4/8/6/34861">http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/8/6/34861</a></p>
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+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Pursuit, by Frank (Frank Mackenzie)
+Savile, Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Pursuit
+
+
+Author: Frank (Frank Mackenzie) Savile
+
+
+
+Release Date: January 5, 2011  [eBook #34861]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PURSUIT***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Darleen Dove, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 34861-h.htm or 34861-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34861/34861-h/34861-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34861/34861-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PURSUIT
+
+by
+
+FRANK SAVILE
+
+Author of "Beyond the Great South Wall," etc.
+
+With Illustrations by Herman Pfeifer
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Boston
+Little, Brown, and Company
+1910
+
+Copyright, 1909, 1910,
+By Little, Brown, and Company.
+
+All rights reserved
+
+Published, June, 1910
+
+The University Press, Cambridge, U.S.A.
+
+
+
+[Illustration: _"I know now that you are a gentleman," she said simply_]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+        I. THE LADY OF THE PIER
+
+       II. AT THE TENT CLUB
+
+      III. THE SHADOW OF A NAME
+
+       IV. DESPARD EXPLAINS
+
+        V. MR. MILLER
+
+       VI. LANDON'S NEW PROFESSION
+
+      VII. VILLA EULALIA
+
+     VIII. THE FIRST TRICK IS LOST
+
+       IX. AYLMER IS EXPLICIT
+
+        X. BY FAVOR OF THE FOG
+
+       XI. RATTIER LOSES HIS CALM
+
+      XII. THE AMBUSH OF THE BROOM
+
+     XIII. THE TRAP
+
+      XIV. ONE SIDE OF A BARGAIN
+
+       XV. PERINAUD'S NEWS
+
+      XVI. AT MELILLA
+
+     XVII. MUHAMMED SCORES TWICE
+
+    XVIII. THE SANTA MARGARITA'S LAZARET
+
+      XIX. MILLER IS STILL IMPERTURBABLE
+
+       XX. AYLMER CLIMBS--AND FALLS
+
+      XXI. FATE STAYS HER HAND
+
+     XXII. THE PRISON
+
+    XXIII. PADRE SIGISMONDI
+
+     XXIV. LUIGI'S HOSPITALITY
+
+      XXV. FATE'S FINAL WORD
+
+     XXVI. DAWN COMES
+
+    XXVII. SHADOWS GO
+
+   XXVIII. FATE SMILES AT LAST
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+"I know now that you are a gentleman," she said simply
+
+"You saved the boy!" she said, in a quick, panting whisper
+
+"Mademoiselle, I am Sergeant Perinaud"
+
+She gripped the protecting hand between her fingers
+
+
+
+
+THE PURSUIT
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE LADY OF THE PIER
+
+
+It was not the muleteer's shove, slight but significant though it was,
+which produced John Aylmer's shrug of irritation. His resentment was
+directed at himself. He realized that he had been guilty of a gaucherie.
+For thirty seconds he had been standing halted in the main street of
+Tangier, a rock of obstruction to all the rabble traffic which passes
+between the Bab al Marsa and the Bab al Sok, staring at--what?
+
+At a pretty woman.
+
+He reddened under his tan. The muleteer's shoulder had displaced him for
+purely practical reasons, for, indeed, almost benevolent ones, for the
+mules would have been capable of obtaining with their teeth what their
+guardian had obtained by mere weight of his body. But Aylmer felt that
+by accepted social standards a kick would not have been more than his
+due. Had he not been behaving like some cub of a cockney clerk at an
+Earl's Court Exhibition? His lips moved. He was muttering excuses of
+himself to himself, and knew that they were valid, but that an onlooker
+would have had no clue to them.
+
+For it was not her prettiness which had drawn his attention to the girl.
+It took no second glance to assure him that she was no countrywoman of
+his, but an American. Her features had the clean regularity, her
+complexion the pale, unfurrowed smoothness which is kept intact on the
+western side of the Atlantic and there alone. The Moroccan sunlight was
+proving in a dozen places the mistake the shadows made when they dulled
+the gold of her hair to brown. Her eyes matched the waters of the
+unrippled bay.
+
+Though he recognized these things, they had not, in the first place,
+attracted Aylmer's attention. American girls--pretty American girls--are
+no rarity in Tangier since Mr. Cook threw over Moghreb-al-Aksa the aegis
+of his protection. Under ordinary circumstances he would have looked,
+approved, and, without altering his stride, passed on. But here was
+something which appealed to the inherited instincts of a gentleman. What
+was it?
+
+Apprehension.
+
+He felt no reasonable doubt on the subject. Among this girl's natural
+attributes, he told himself, were placidity, content, self-reliance. The
+first two were wanting. The third was strained. There was almost a sense
+of furtiveness in the glances which she turned to throw not only about
+but, occasionally, behind her. Frankly, she was afraid.
+
+His interest fed upon observation. He glanced at her more narrowly, he
+observed her surroundings. He drew aside out of the mid-street traffic,
+and under pretence of lighting a cigarette, halted again in the shadow
+of an awning.
+
+She was not alone. She held by the hand a small, alert-looking child--a
+boy, who watched the passers-by with the happy, unconcentrated interest
+of childhood. His eyes reviewed his surroundings without any of the
+surprise of unaccustomedness; obviously the scene was not strange to
+him. He smiled at Jew and Moslem, Christian and Infidel, with a pleasant
+patronage which one or two itinerant pedlars and shop touts returned
+with obsequious affability. One man, indeed,--a bronzed, hawk-nosed
+specimen of the desert Arab clad in a ragged _djelab_ of brown,--laughed
+gaily, plucked a carnation from behind his ear, and flung it to his
+small admirer as he passed.
+
+The child gave a little cackle of delight as he picked it up. The girl
+looked down as he did so and frowned.
+
+"Who was that, Selim?" she asked quickly, and Aylmer saw that the
+question was addressed to a stout, muscular Moor who was in attendance.
+
+The man lifted his shoulders in deprecation and darted a suspicious
+glance towards the crowd which had already closed upon the _djelab_ of
+brown.
+
+"Some desert dog," he answered sullenly. "But indeed Sidi Jan encourages
+all the rabble of the Sok to take these liberties. He smiles, and the
+jackals think they have license to smile back."
+
+The object of these reproaches thrust the carnation carelessly behind
+his own small ear.
+
+"I have seen him before--once, twice, many times," he explained. "He
+laughs; he is not gray and dull like Selim. I would like to have him for
+my kavass."
+
+"I drown in perspiration three shirts a day while I wait on thee,"
+affirmed the fat man reproachfully. "Is this thy gratitude?"
+
+"I do not wish to be waited on; I wish to be played with," said the
+child. "I should like to go to the sands where the Kaid's horses are
+galloped, and play with the brown man. We would paddle and I would throw
+the water over him. He has promised me this."
+
+The girl started and gave a convulsive little grip of the fingers which
+lay in hers.
+
+"He has spoken to you?" she cried. "When--where?"
+
+The boy nodded his yellow mop of hair importantly.
+
+"Yesterday as I rode through the Sok," he answered. "He walked beside my
+donkey and told me that I was a horseman already made, and should be on
+the back of a black barb like Sid' Abdullah's. Then I, too, could race
+upon the sands."
+
+The girl looked stonily at the Moor.
+
+"How was this, Selim?" she asked coldly. "Where was your watchfulness?"
+
+The man spread out his hands.
+
+"Am I a prophet--am I Allah Himself?" he cried aggrievedly. "There was a
+crowd--a press--in the Sok yesterday, wherein one had scarcely room to
+take breath. And you have seen for yourself. Sidi Jan snatches at
+familiarities from such as that one; the nearer the gutter he finds his
+friends the better is he pleased."
+
+She looked down at the delinquent, who, without being disconcerted,
+grinned back.
+
+"John," she admonished him gravely, "you are _never_ to speak or listen
+to strangers in the Sok, or anywhere else."
+
+John wriggled and pouted.
+
+"I love the brown man," he answered defiantly.
+
+"He's probably a wicked, wicked man," said his monitress. "Instead of
+playing with you on the sands, he'd very likely bite you--like a camel."
+
+The eyes beneath the yellow mop grew round with interest.
+
+"Would he?" he asked breathlessly. "That would--would be fun!"
+
+Do what he could to restrain it, a smile broadened across Aylmer's face,
+and in that moment the girl, looking up, met his eye. He reddened
+slightly again, hastily struck and put a match to his still unlit
+cigarette. But in that instant he had read surprise first in her glance,
+then the knowledge that she had been overheard, and lastly--yes, there
+was no doubt about it--fear. Not the apprehension of the unknown and
+unexpected this time, but the thrill of distrust experienced by one
+seeing peril looming unveiled before her. She was afraid of him, John
+Aylmer! Her apprehension was no longer vague; he had become the target
+of it.
+
+She dropped her eyes, made a sign to the Moor, and swung quickly towards
+the nearest shop. And Aylmer, in the midst of the mental disturbance
+caused by the incident, barely repressed a smile. For the booth, it was
+little more, was stored with the coarse calicoes and prints which appeal
+to the dwellers in the desert; there was certainly nothing there to
+please the tourist or hunter of curios. No--hunted, she had turned
+instinctively to the nearest shelter. Undoubtedly she had fled
+from--him.
+
+He wheeled quickly and strode off down the hill towards the
+Bab-al-Marsa. Explanation eluded him; he felt baffled. At the same time
+he was conscious of a sense of relief. Instinct had brought him to a
+halt, the instinct which bids the normal man stop to offer help to the
+helpless even before that help is claimed. He had discovered, or thought
+he had discovered, fear in the girl's attitude, and almost inadvertently
+had stayed to rout it. And now? What fear could have a stable foundation
+which made him, an absolute stranger, its sudden focus?
+
+He shook his head regretfully. To what could not neurasthenia or some
+such fashionable derangement of the nerves bring a woman in these days
+of fashionable stress? And yet? Her bearing had not been that of a
+neurotic. And she was young, three and twenty at the outside. Her face
+was unlined, her eyes clear, yet, after a moment's scrutiny, she had
+fled from him. He could not dismiss the problem; he carried it with him
+out of the Marsa gate, along the wooden pier. Behind the toll bar he sat
+upon a timber balk and studied it. It gave him a sense of physical pain
+to remember the expression in those eyes, of which the sea was one vast
+reminder.
+
+A minute or two later, with a petulant shrug, he dismissed the
+matter--or tried to--from his thoughts. After all, mystery though it
+was, the affair had no real significance for him. He had, inadvertently,
+frightened a lady. But no real responsibility was his. He had looked at
+her keenly; too keenly, perhaps, but with no shadow of offence. She had
+chosen to interpret his scrutiny as menacing. They would probably not
+meet again--why, indeed, should they? And yet, this decision was
+mentally addressed to a possibly listening Fate to disarm it. Without
+defining the desire even to himself, he knew that it was there. He
+wanted to meet her again; he wanted it badly.
+
+It was with this desire still at the back of his mind that he turned his
+eyes seaward on the mission which had brought him to the harbor.
+
+The _Diomede_? Was she in? Would her commander, Paul Rattier, be in time
+to join him in riding out to the Tent Club that evening, or would they
+have to postpone their expedition to the early hours of daylight? He
+strained his glance northward where the gray bulk of Gibraltar was
+hidden by floating clouds of Mediterranean mist.
+
+Two French men-of-war lay far out in the bay. A trail of black smoke
+showed where another steamed eastward with invalids from Casablanca to
+Oran. But neither of the three was the _Diomede_; he knew her squat
+turrets among a thousand. He gave a pessimistic little sigh. Instead of
+the jovial evening out at Awara under canvas, they would have the hot
+discomforts of an hotel and a fifteen-mile ride in the dawning to sap
+their energies before the day's sport began. He looked up with
+discontent at the westering sun. It appeared to be sinking towards the
+horizon with almost indecent haste.
+
+He pulled out another cigarette and lounged lazily along the plank,
+watching the traffic of the pier and shore in _blase_ indifference. Just
+below him half a dozen _barcasses_ were being filled with stout, squat
+little cattle, destined for food for the weary troops of Ber Rechid and
+El Setat. The bullocks were being goaded up an incline of planks and
+tumbled roughly into the unwieldy lighters, and as these were filled a
+little tug fussed up and towed them by threes to the waiting steamer of
+the Compagnie Mixte. And here the sufferings of the bullocks deepened
+from mere discomfort to the fine edge of tragedy. In twos they were
+lassoed round the horns. The steam winch aboard the steamer crashed,
+and with straining necks and starting eyes the unfortunate beasts were
+rushed up through the air and swung with terrifying speed down into the
+hold. They were near enough for him to see through his binoculars the
+strained mute agony of fear in the eyes of each brute as it swung. And
+there was a dog on board. Each time as the living load passed within
+reach of its leap, it sprang into the air and made its teeth meet in the
+helpless flesh. And the stevedores applauded and goaded him to further
+efforts. Finally the horns of one struggling animal broke. There was a
+hoarse laugh as it fell, to break other bones, no doubt, in the depths
+of the hold, or to mutilate some former comrade below. Aylmer turned
+away with a shrug of sickened disgust. What a land of cruelty it was, of
+grinding cruelty which spared neither man, woman, nor child, and
+certainly no beast! He turned his glance shorewards to avoid seeing the
+tragedy of the bullocks repeat itself.
+
+As he did so he gave a start of suddenly aroused interest. Rapidly
+nearing him was a man whom he recognized. He was the hawk-nosed, swarthy
+son of the desert who had flung the carnation at the American child's
+feet. He was walking rapidly, smiling, talking in a quick undertone to
+another child, one who trotted at his side happily enough--born of his
+own people, this--a little Moor, clad in a tiny bournous and a hooded
+_djelab_ of brown.
+
+They were making for the steps which led down from Aylmer's side to the
+huddle of rowboats which awaited chance fares below.
+
+Suddenly Aylmer's attention, which had been aroused merely by the fact
+that the sight of the man led his thoughts back to the interest of an
+hour before, became concentrated. The Moorish child babbled in English!
+
+"A black stallion!" he said impressively. "One that will arch his neck
+like the dome of the mosque, and carry me past all the other horses on
+the sands?"
+
+"It shall be as you desire, little lord," answered the man, easily. "We
+have but to take a boat from among the many below and row across to the
+beach. There the horse of thy desires awaits thee. Look carefully.
+Perchance thou canst see it even now. Thou hast the eyes of a hawk; I
+know it."
+
+And then Aylmer understood. He saw that below the child's ears and along
+the line of his hair a dye had been applied. The golden curls had been
+stuffed back into the hood of the _djelab_, shoes and stockings flung
+away, and little dye-stained feet thrust into yellow slippers. The folds
+of the bournous covered all else. It was the child of the street
+encounter, the child himself!
+
+Aylmer's instincts, rather than any formed purpose, brought him to his
+feet and in front of the man, as the latter was about to descend the
+stairs.
+
+"Where did you gain authority over this?" he asked curtly in Arabic,
+pointing down at the boy.
+
+The man eyed him with stony imperturbability.
+
+"Is Tangier come to such a pass that we of the Faith have to justify to
+Nazarenes our authority over our own children?" he asked. "Keep to thine
+own affairs, _Kaffirbillah_."
+
+Aylmer did not unbar the road of the steps. He leaned down and spoke
+directly to the child, who was regarding him with half timid curiosity.
+
+"Is this man your kavass?" he said gently. "Is he in your parents'
+service?"
+
+The red flush of guilt rose under the brown dye. A bright yellow curl
+fell from out of the _djelab_ hood as the small head was shaken.
+
+"He promised me a horse," said lips which had begun to have a distinct
+semblance of trembling. "They have only given me a donkey so far--only a
+gray donkey."
+
+"Then they do not know that you are with this man; they would not allow
+it?" pursued Aylmer.
+
+The Moor broke in angrily.
+
+"Do not be questioned, little lord!" he cried. "This is a son of
+infinite shame and wickedness, who has no rights over thee!"
+
+"As many, at least, I suspect, as thou," returned Aylmer. "This is a
+matter for investigation. We will come to the post of the Spanish police
+at the pier head."
+
+"We!" The man's eyes flashed wickedly. "I come not, nor this, my
+charge."
+
+Aylmer shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"That is a matter within your discretion, for yourself." He laid his
+hand upon the child's shoulder. "But this one goes with me."
+
+A grin of rage flashed across the Moor's features. With one hand he made
+a quick clawing snatch at the child's arm; the other he plunged into his
+bosom. As it reappeared a knife blade flashed in the sun.
+
+Mere instinct made Aylmer throw up his arm in defence. Experience and
+presence of mind bade him fling himself to one side without removing his
+knee from the path of his assailant. Matters followed the usual course
+when this old trick of the desert is put in action. The fellow tripped,
+plunged forward over the outsprawled limb, and fell crashingly upon his
+elbows.
+
+Aylmer's first thought was for the knife which gleamed upon the
+planking half a dozen yards away. He scrambled to his feet and, without
+troubling to bend, gravely kicked it into the sea. At the same time he
+was aware of a commotion behind him. The small child's voice was raised
+in anger.
+
+"I hate you--I hate you!" he declaimed. "Now Selim will get me!"
+
+There was a reason for his wrath. Panting, blowing, and, to be frank,
+looking uncommonly like an over-driven buffalo, the Moor attendant was
+speeding down the pier with outstretched arms furiously gesticulating.
+The flap of his slippers slammed upon the boards, boat boys jeered,
+hotel touts made comments which no Bowdler could render into reputable
+English. And a few yards behind him--Aylmer's heart gave a queer little
+leap at the sight--ran totteringly the white-clad lady, his mistress.
+
+The child made an angry gesture of repulse.
+
+"I won't go back!" he shrilled. "I won't, I won't!"
+
+He looked round towards his new-found friend, who was scrambling to his
+feet. He ran towards him.
+
+Aylmer stretched out a hand and whirled the child up, facing towards the
+Moor. The latter hesitated, looked towards the advancing figures, and
+hesitated no longer. Behind the lady ran a couple of the newly raised
+Spanish police.
+
+He swerved swiftly aside, dashed down the steps, and passed rapidly from
+boat to boat across the gunwales till he had gained one on the outskirt
+of the press. He shouted fiercely to the boy who held the oars, and the
+latter bent to his work. The tide was with them and they passed rapidly
+across the harbor mouth towards the yellow sands outside the town.
+
+The child struggled and shouted in Aylmer's arms, stretching out his
+hands as he saw his friend disappear in the direction of the, to him,
+still credible black stallion and other promised delights. He struck out
+passionately at Selim as the latter's hand closed upon him like the grip
+of an embodied Fate.
+
+"I want my horse, my horse!" he wailed. "I don't want a donkey; I hate
+it, hate it!"
+
+Aylmer surrendered him, nothing loath, into his attendant's arms and
+then stood expectant, hat in hand. As she saw Selim again in full
+command of his responsibilities, the girl dropped from a run into a
+rapid walk. She panted, she held her hand upon her breast as she joined
+them. The two khaki-clad police inspected Aylmer with something of
+mistrust in their gaze.
+
+For a moment her breath failed her; she could only look at the captive
+with half resentful, half satisfied eyes. Then she shook her finger at
+him.
+
+"You wicked child!" she cried. "You wicked, wicked child!"
+
+The small sinner laughed defiantly.
+
+"The brown man beckoned me from the door of the mosque," he boasted. "I
+did see him and ran behind the mule that passed, and in at the door, and
+the brown man caught me up and smeared brown stuff on my face, and ran
+with me through the other door and out into the other street and covered
+me with this." He indicated the _djelab_ with pride. "And Selim did not
+find me. Ho! Ho! I saw fat Selim jumping like a jerboa as we passed the
+harbor gate!"
+
+Aylmer inspected him gravely.
+
+"I have a bamboo cane at home which would meet your case, young man," he
+said quietly. "Would the loan of it be a boon?" he asked suddenly,
+looking at the girl.
+
+There was no answering smile in her eyes. She shook her head.
+
+"Thank you for--your intervention," she said quickly. "No, we never beat
+children in America; we--we respect them."
+
+Aylmer nodded.
+
+"In England our plan is to make them respect themselves," he answered.
+"I dare say both methods have their advantages." He made a gesture
+towards the town. "Can I have the pleasure of escorting you back?" he
+asked. "Have you any further--attempts to fear?"
+
+There was an obvious desire for information in the question and in his
+eyes.
+
+She made no attempt to satisfy it. She shook her head again.
+
+"Thank you, no," she answered. "John will have no further opportunities
+to escape us; we have had our lesson. I can only thank you again and say
+good morning."
+
+He raised his cap in answer to her bow. He watched her turn and walk
+after Selim, who held his prisoner enfolded in an embrace that gave no
+loophole for a second escape, little, indeed, for any movement at all.
+Expression gave place to expression on Aylmer's face. Irritation
+succeeded surprise and that was quickly followed by amusement.
+
+Finally he seemed to dismiss the subject with a shrug which was all
+bewilderment.
+
+"She thanked me," he reminded himself. "She thanked me, but her manner
+suggested that she would rather have flung me a sovereign to get
+decently rid of me." He nodded his head with decision. "She's afraid of
+me, that's the truth. Why--in the name of all that's sensible--Why?"
+
+Echo supplied no answer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+AT THE TENT CLUB
+
+
+Aylmer tightened the reins, touched the rowels against the mare's flank,
+and lifted her out of her easy amble into something like a canter. He
+called to his companion and pointed up the slope at a gleam of white set
+in the dun green of the cork woods.
+
+"The camp!" he said, and gave a little sigh of relief. Through the
+fifteen miles which separate Tangier from Awara the two had halted no
+longer than sufficed to tighten a girth or light a cigarette. The horses
+were white with lather, the men stained with dust.
+
+Commandant Rattier looked, nodded, and smiled. For a sailor, people were
+apt to consider him taciturn--at first; but they soon discovered that
+his was a taciturnity which spoke. His brown eyes could gleam with many
+lights which were whimsically expressive. A little sidelong jerk of his
+neatly trimmed beard told more than many elaborated sentences.
+Reputations had tottered and scandals had been abashed before a single
+gesture of his neatly gloved hands. For the moment his nod suggested
+content, anticipation, and unruffled good humor.
+
+A minute later surprise overcame his reticence. Half a dozen dull,
+half-muffled explosions throbbed in the distant jungle of broom and wild
+olive. The commandant's eyebrows rose in arcs of amazement.
+
+"Do they then shoot the boar as well as impale it?" he asked.
+
+Aylmer smiled.
+
+"The beaters," he explained. "They are driving towards the plain behind
+the marsh. They are firing blank charges."
+
+The Frenchman gave a little laugh.
+
+"In all these matters you must remember that I am of an ignorance the
+most profound. And my impudence, also, must appear to you colossal. I am
+to allow myself to charge with a spear--I, who, till to-day, have never
+seen a wild pig save, perhaps, as bacon!"
+
+Aylmer dropped the reins upon the mare's neck, lifted his hand, and
+wiped his forehead.
+
+"All things must have a beginning, my friend," he said. "You have the
+sailor's eye and, no doubt, the sailor's steady hand. And, above all,
+you ride--as sailors do not always ride. I have every reason to believe
+that I shall be proud of you before the day is out."
+
+Rattier lifted his shoulders with a little shrug. He did not speak, but
+he left the impression that he deprecated this point of view, found the
+arguments futile, and disposed of the question finally. The attention of
+the riders was suddenly drawn elsewhere.
+
+A couple of men emerged into view from behind a clump of argans. They
+held two horses by the bridles. One of them signalled with outstretched
+hand.
+
+As Aylmer reined in the mare almost upon her haunches the man dropped
+his hand, relinquished the horse he held into the care of his companion,
+and approached. He made a dignified gesture of welcome and pointed to a
+basket on the ground.
+
+"Sid' Anstruther sends breakfast, Sidi. They drive the bush beyond the
+hill and the marsh. If you will refresh yourselves here you will avoid
+climbing the hill to the camp. You can then take these horses and join
+the spears who wait at the tongue of the jungle in the plain."
+
+Aylmer slid to the ground.
+
+"It is well thought of, Absalaam," he said, and turned to explain
+matters to his companion. The Moor beckoned forward his underling, who
+quickly tethered the fresh horses to a broom stump and then led away the
+other two in the direction of the tents which gleamed white upon the
+slope a mile or so above them. Absalaam, meanwhile, was deftly setting
+out the meal in the shadow of the argan branches.
+
+The two began to eat and drink with appreciation but quickly. They did
+not exchange much conversation; their attention, indeed, seemed
+concentrated on matters outside sight but within hearing. For the
+muffled explosions continued and to them was added the sound of
+chorussed and intermittent yells. But these last had not risen to any
+great pitch of excitement; no pig, or, at any rate, no boar, had as yet
+been sighted or had broken cover.
+
+Absalaam flitted to and fro handing dishes, changing plates, expressing
+by the vigilance of his attitude and actions the fact that he, too,
+appreciated the need for haste. His dark eyes beamed a sort of intensity
+of vigor; the pose of his head seemed to indicate that his ears were
+critically alert to the purport of those distant shouts. But he offered
+no comment till Aylmer pushed aside his plate and rose to his feet.
+
+"Your station, oh Sidis, will be at the far side of the point of jungle,
+between the marsh and the forest."
+
+Aylmer nodded, explained to Rattier, and swung himself into the saddle.
+
+"How many spears?" he asked laconically. The Moor held up the open
+fingers of one hand.
+
+"Four," he answered, "and a lady, who rides but does not carry a spear.
+It will be difficult with so few, but the Sidis will find the horses of
+good mettle and capable. Have I now your leave to go, oh Sidis? It is
+desirable that I join the beaters."
+
+Aylmer made a curt motion of consent and looked round, with a tinge of
+impatience, for his companion. Rattier was daintily flicking a crumb or
+two from his khaki tunic and flapping his handkerchief at the dust on
+his overalls. He mounted, at last, with a self-satisfied little shrug.
+He was prepared to meet the world's criticism, or this, at any rate, was
+the implication his shoulders conveyed.
+
+With an air that was deferential without being obsequious the Moor
+handed each rider a long "under-arm" spear. The next instant they had
+disappeared down the ragged track through the mimosa at a gallop.
+
+As they emerged into the open plain beyond the stretch of forest land,
+the yells in the jungle combined into a stentorian chorus. The hidden
+men shrieked, hollaed, rattled their staves, and in one or two instances
+performed excited fantasias with empty sardine tins. Up on the slope a
+furlong or two above Aylmer and his companion, a woman came suddenly
+into view, riding a dappled gray, and waving a handkerchief.
+
+They turned towards her as another rider, as yet unseen, cantered round
+a thicket of broom in the same direction.
+
+The handkerchief was waved excitedly and the canter became a gallop.
+
+The mimosa crashed; the sun-dried lop of wild olive was splintered.
+Something dark, unwieldy, menacing, burst out of the undergrowth with a
+speed which seemed preposterously out of proportion to its bulk. It fled
+across the interval of sand which lay between the strip of forest behind
+it and the one from which Aylmer and Rattier had just emerged. Emotion
+perforated the latter's imperturbability. Speech escaped him.
+
+"But this is a monster!" he exclaimed. "The near relation of a
+hippopotamus!"
+
+The boar may have heard and certainly seemed to resent the criticism. He
+jinked, wheeled from the direction which would have taken him slantingly
+towards the other rider, and charged the commandant. Nothing daunted,
+the latter lowered his spear and galloped steadily forward.
+
+He did not attempt to lessen his speed to receive the shock. Had his
+skill, indeed, been equal to his spirit, the result would never have
+been in doubt. But he held his spear at a "dropping" angle, which
+discounted the force of speed behind it. The point, instead of meeting
+the boar's chest in a line almost parallel with the ground, grazed his
+jaw, brushed past his shoulder, and cut a shallow groove in his quarter.
+It turned the charge, but not far enough. The wicked eight-inch tusks
+flashed out in passing and gashed the horse's pastern. The gallop slowed
+into a canter, blundered into a trot, and became a halting limp.
+
+The boar jinked again and Aylmer spurred in pursuit, hearing the hoofs
+of his rival's horse thundering jealously behind. He increased his
+speed, diminished the distance yard by yard, lowered his spear, thrust,
+and was nearly spilled from the saddle. With incredible quickness the
+huge body had wheeled again as if on a pivot.
+
+The pursuers made a chorus of their vexation. Their impetuosity carried
+them a full forty yards past the line of the boar's retreat. They reined
+in jerkily, and turned to see their quarry in full retreat up the hill.
+
+By good horsemanship Aylmer maintained and increased his lead, but
+without much hope of overhauling the chase before the thicket gave it
+shelter. The mimosa covert was a bare two furlongs distant. The only
+chance lay in the boar being headed, and all the spears were,
+apparently, behind it. There remained nothing to do but to ride and ride
+hard.
+
+His horse responded bravely to the touch of the spur but the sand was
+loose and deep. He decreased very slightly the distance between pursuer
+and pursued, faltered once or twice, and began to show distress in his
+breathing. Aylmer told himself that, for the moment, the game was up.
+
+And then, with a whirl of flying drapery and gesticulating arms, a new
+rider shot into view on the brow of the slope. Absalaam, calling down
+innumerable maledictions upon the ancestry of all jungle pigs, galloped
+a tent pony between the boar and his refuge.
+
+His tactics were successful, but not in the direction which he had
+desired. The brute wheeled, not down-hill towards the other riders, but
+slanting back and still upwards in the direction of Awara and the camp.
+
+As Aylmer swerved to follow, a cry startled him. He was suddenly aware
+that the lady in white was riding slightly behind, but almost abreast of
+him. She was swathed in a sand veil, but her eyes were uncovered and the
+expression in them was arresting. She was staring up the hill. Her
+glance told of anxiety, or even horror.
+
+He followed the direction of her gaze.
+
+Two figures appeared, both exactly in the line of the hunt. One, also
+white clad, and running with uncertain feet, was evidently a child--a
+boy of six or seven years. He had distanced his pursuer, a fat and
+middle-aged Moor, who was menacing him with gesticulations of wrath and
+at the same time emitting supplicating cries. The youngster answered him
+with triumphant little jeers, and continued his escape. At the same
+moment both of them saw the approaching danger.
+
+The child halted, hesitated, and seemed to debate upon his action. Not
+so the Moor. With a howl of dismay he fled towards the undergrowth, his
+yellow slippers twinkling against the dun background of the sand. And he
+continued to yell with whole-hearted despair; he woke the echoes with
+his shrieks.
+
+About fifty yards separated Aylmer from the boar. The child was a full
+furlong distant. A sudden chill pulsed into, and gripped, the man's
+heart as he realized the situation.
+
+Again the woman called aloud and smote her horse furiously across the
+withers as she strove to urge it on. Taken by surprise the gray changed
+step, stumbled, and nearly came down. With lowered spear Aylmer shot
+ahead.
+
+The horse responded nobly to the need. The interval decreased. The boar
+was thirty yards ahead--twenty--now no more than ten. The wicked little
+eyes flung glances sideways; the bristling withers showed that almost
+imperceptible rippling motion which presages a "jink."
+
+Aylmer leaned down across his saddle, holding out the spear before him
+almost by the butt. He was yet too far to get in a thrust. He could only
+hope to divert the brute's attention by a short, pricking stab. For the
+child, now running with short, terrified strides, was immediately in
+front of the gleaming tusks.
+
+Aylmer lunged out.
+
+The point reached and entered the boar's flank. It squealed savagely,
+turned, blundered, and fell beneath the horse's hoofs. Aylmer felt the
+shock, the agonizing effort at recovery, the final thud of the fall. The
+horse tripped and rolled over; the spear was torn from the rider's grip.
+Aylmer ploughed a groove in the sand which landed him far out beyond the
+huddle of flying limbs in which the white tusks were already working
+viciously.
+
+He scrambled first to his knees and then to his feet. He looked around.
+The child was close to him, running now towards him. His hands were
+outstretched; he gave little panting cries.
+
+And then Aylmer experienced that curious cold sense of relaxation which
+comes to some men when the situation calls for instant effort. He saw
+the child; he saw also the boar, slashing relentlessly a way out from
+the tangle of his horse's legs; he saw the horsewoman whose reins were
+tightening not twenty yards away. But here was no cause for hesitation
+or bewilderment. His mind, to himself, worked with a certain sense of
+leisure. He stooped, caught up the child, placed him in the woman's
+arms, and gave her horse a thrust of dismissal with his fist. As the
+flying hoofs scattered the sand upon his tunic, he turned to confront
+his own plight without fear, with, indeed, nothing less than relief. The
+absorbing objective of the last two minutes being achieved, his mind
+had not had time to review and interpret his own danger.
+
+The boar shook itself free of entanglement, snapped around at the wound
+in its flank, swayed a little and suddenly, malignantly, focussed its
+gaze upon Aylmer. It gave a grunt of satisfaction, as it seemed. As if
+the tension of a hidden spring was released, it bounded forward.
+
+Aylmer looked at it as one looks at, and appraises, a picture. The sense
+of his own peril was in his mind, but latently. He understood the
+consequences if the boar reached him, but, owing to some perverse
+enravelment of the brain, details absorbed him to the veiling of all
+else. He noted with what excellent effect the crimson smear upon the
+dark flank shone out against the dull background of the sand. He
+recognized the abnormal curl of the tusks, and debated to what angle the
+jaw must be slanted to deliver the ripping undercut which experience
+told him he would receive within a couple of seconds. He saw with a pang
+of regret that the shaft of his spear was broken; the splintered end
+protruded from below the withers of the still struggling horse. Thus the
+picture--which engrossed him.
+
+And then it was gone, blotted out. The thunder of hoofs, a rising cloud
+of sand, a dark, struggling mass, which was the boar upon its back. The
+rider whom he had distanced had passed and the spear had got home. Red
+was the central spot of this picture, also, but no longer on the dark
+flank. It welled from the dying animal's chest in torrents.
+
+As he watched its struggles, the sense of hazard escaped came home to
+him. Fear found room in his brain. He ran towards the broken spear,
+grasped it, turned to confront a peril which no longer menaced.
+
+A shudder shook the swaying body, the great thews relaxed. The boar
+panted violently--once--twice. Then with a single sigh, very gently,
+very languidly, it sank upon the earth. And so lay still.
+
+As he stood staring down at it, a reaction against his tinge of panic
+moved Aylmer to laughter. He began to giggle in little bubbling gasps of
+mirth which were near relations of hysteria. Matters had gone so quickly
+that his sense of proportion had been displaced. First perfect
+equanimity, then sudden and unfounded apprehension, now recoil. One
+short minute had made ample room for all these among his emotions. He
+found laughter the only balm to his self-respect, for he was shivering
+with a Briton's uneasy sense of having been guilty of melodrama.
+
+His introspection was so intent that he failed to observe the return of
+the lady in white till her horse spurned the sand upon his riding boots.
+Then he wheeled alertly and looked up in her face. Her veil had dropped.
+
+She was clasping the child to her with the hand in which she gripped the
+reins. The other she held out to him.
+
+"You saved the boy!" she said, in a quick, panting whisper. "You saved
+him!"
+
+[Illustration: _"You saved the boy!" she said, in a quick, panting
+whisper_]
+
+Aylmer took the proffered hand, lifted his hat, smiled, and recognized
+the lady of the pier.
+
+He hesitated a moment. He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"No," he deprecated, and pointed to the other spear-man who was already
+wheeling to inspect his trophy. "Your thanks are due to our friend
+Despard, if anywhere."
+
+"No!" she contradicted vehemently. "Did I not see it? You were
+sacrificing yourself, doing it deliberately. And I shall never forget
+it--never!"
+
+He smiled again. He looked at the child who sat silent on the
+saddle-bow, staring down at him.
+
+"Still running away?" queried Aylmer, pleasantly. "Whither, this time?
+And what was the terrible hurry?"
+
+A guilty grin puckered the little man's lips.
+
+"I thought I knowed you; you're the man of--of yesterday," he shrilled.
+"I was running from Selim. He wanted me to take siesta, but I did wish
+to be in the hunt."
+
+Aylmer nodded.
+
+"The usual trouble," he said. "We all want to be in--or, at any rate, to
+see--the hunt. And we never pay any attention to Selims, worse luck.
+You'll learn more by experience, sonny."
+
+The child made a little gesture of protest.
+
+"That's not my name," he answered solemnly. "Mother calls me Jackanapes,
+or Jack. But I'm John, really, just John."
+
+"Just John," assented Aylmer. "Just John what?"
+
+"John Aylmer," said the boy and stared in surprise at his new friend's
+startled visage. But the other John Aylmer was not looking at his
+namesake. He was looking at the girl who held him.
+
+Her eyes answered the glance gravely, sternly, even defiantly, and in
+silence.
+
+"You?" cried Aylmer. "You are--?"
+
+She hesitated.
+
+"John's nurse," she said, looking him steadily in the face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE SHADOW OF A NAME
+
+
+For a moment there was silence between the two. Aylmer's fingers
+unconsciously wound and unwound a tiny lock of hair in the horse's mane.
+His eyes travelled over the woman's face and figure appraisingly; his
+brows contracted into a frown of puzzlement.
+
+He had seen little John Aylmer's mother once before, at her wedding nine
+years previously. She had been a girl, then, almost a child, and young
+for her age, which was barely eighteen. Her beauty had been the fresh,
+innocent _beaute du diable_. She was fair, blue-eyed, with a tendency to
+fragility. And if report told the truth, her beauty had wasted and her
+fragility increased through the cruel years of her husband's domination.
+A bare six months ago she had been freed. Her father's millions had
+helped her to a separation which English Courts had made a legal one.
+They had also given her the custody of her one child, the heir to the
+Aylmer name and the Landon title.
+
+This girl was fair, indeed; her eyes like the sea, her color fresh, her
+forehead bland and unwrinkled. But she was not the woman whose woes had
+made copy for a thousand newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic, whose
+sufferings had roused the storm of execration which had made the honest
+name of Aylmer a byword of dishonor and reproach. No, this was not his
+cousin Landon's wife.
+
+And yet?
+
+Feature for feature, line for line, she reminded him of the woman whose
+daintiness he remembered among the massed decorations of that New York
+cathedral those years ago.
+
+He sought bluntly for an explanation.
+
+"I, too, am John Aylmer," he said quietly. "Who are you?"
+
+The sudden thrill of surprise with which she clutched the child to her
+tightened the reins. The gray backed a step; it was as if horse and
+rider were alike repelled by his question.
+
+She stared at him with a sudden fierce aversion which was undisguised.
+
+"You are Landon's cousin--you?" she cried.
+
+He bowed his head.
+
+"I have that misfortune," he answered quietly.
+
+At the form of his answer a tinge of relief woke in her eyes, but they
+still watched him with incredulity and suspicion.
+
+"He--he has sent you?" she demanded. "You bring other proposals, or
+threats?"
+
+He smiled gravely.
+
+"We have shared nothing, except a club, he and I," he explained. "I have
+not set eyes on him for over a year."
+
+She still watched him alertly, debatingly, and still with mistrust.
+
+"How did you come here, and why?" she asked.
+
+"I am a member of the Tent Club," he answered. "I am in garrison at
+Gibraltar. I could not get leave till yesterday afternoon and I waited
+in Tangier to accompany Captain Rattier, whose ship is in harbor. Have I
+sufficiently explained myself?"
+
+She hesitated.
+
+"You have not seen your cousin for over a year? Perhaps you are in
+correspondence with him?"
+
+He showed signs of impatience.
+
+"We have not exchanged half a dozen letters in our lives!" he said
+emphatically.
+
+The lines of her face remained unsoftened. Her fierce grip on the
+child's shoulder did not relax.
+
+"And this Frenchman--this Captain Rattier?" she asked. "What of him?"
+
+His eyebrows expressed the intensity of his amazement.
+
+"Paul Rattier is my distant cousin," he answered. "No finer gentleman
+walks the earth." He paused for a moment. "Is it permitted to inquire
+why you suspect--strangers?"
+
+She did not answer him. An abstraction, real or feigned, seemed to have
+seized her. She stared out over his head into the distance with unseeing
+eyes as if she weighed problems, debated evidence, sought conclusions.
+It was the child who roused her into attention. He laughed, clapped his
+hands, and shouted.
+
+"Browny!" he clamored in delight. "Browny!"
+
+Aylmer looked round.
+
+Rattier, leading a very melancholy and still bleeding horse, had
+approached with Despard. Together they were bending over the major's
+trophy, the dead boar. Behind them Aylmer's horse was hobbling painfully
+to its feet. Despard looked up and shook an admonishing finger at his
+acclaimer.
+
+"You young rebel!" he cried. "You want a good smacking for your
+disobedience!"
+
+He slipped from the saddle as he spoke and led his horse towards them.
+He laid his hand familiarly on Aylmer's shoulder.
+
+"Hurt?" he asked.
+
+"Not in the least," said Aylmer, and then looked, with a significant
+lift of the eyebrow, from Despard to the gray horse's rider.
+
+Despard's face showed his own surprise.
+
+"Don't you know each other yet?" he marvelled. "Miss Van Arlen--Captain
+Aylmer."
+
+Uncertainty gripped Aylmer again. Landon had married a daughter of Jacob
+Van Arlen, the millionaire. A divorcee reverted to her maiden name, but
+surely not to her maiden title. But Despard had said Miss, most
+distinctly Miss.
+
+With his usual straightforward instinct to find the nearest way to probe
+a mystery, he looked at the girl herself. He became aware that her eyes
+had been upon his face with intentness.
+
+"Yes," she said quietly. "This," she patted the child's shoulder, "is my
+nephew."
+
+He gave a little sigh of appreciation and, he scarcely knew why, of
+relief. It was not possible, of course, that this girl, whose whole
+poise and carriage spoke of resolution and unfettered self-command,
+could be the woman, broken in health and spirit, who had cowered before
+her husband's glance, so some of the baser journals had hinted, even
+when she was seeking and had received the law's protection from him.
+
+And her eyes? They were not of that appealing blue which had shone
+beneath the bride's deep lashes on that half-forgotten wedding-day. They
+were blue, indeed, but they met his with something which was akin to
+defiance.
+
+She did not explain herself, but her glance was that of one who needed
+no warrant for her demeanor. Her attitude was not one of blatant
+aggressiveness, but was undoubtedly distrustful.
+
+He looked at the child with renewed interest.
+
+"Your sister is--where?" he asked quickly.
+
+The frown came swiftly back to her forehead.
+
+"You ask me that? Why?" she demanded.
+
+He looked at the boy.
+
+"Naturally I thought she might be with you," he answered. "As an Aylmer
+I should be glad to meet her."
+
+"Ah!" Her tone was hard and suspicious again. Unconsciously she gripped
+the child to her again with a fierceness which made him protest.
+
+"You hurt!" he complained. "You hurt, and I want to see the boar."
+
+With a sailor's instinctive fondness for children, Rattier, who had
+resigned his limping horse into the hands of one of the Arab beaters,
+turned towards him.
+
+"May I be permitted?" he said simply, and held out his arms. The child
+made a restless little movement towards him. "He'll show it me!" he
+cried joyously. "He'll take me!"
+
+Again she reined back, looking from one to the other with patent
+misgiving.
+
+"No!" she cried sharply. "You shall not touch him, either of you!" She
+made an appealing gesture towards Despard. "You must see me back to the
+camp!" she said.
+
+He was smiling with tranquil amusement, a smile which seemed to rouse
+her to anger.
+
+"Let us go now, at once!" she said, and wheeled her horse.
+
+Despard nodded, but did not dismiss the smile.
+
+"Might I inform you that Aylmer has been my friend since our Sandhurst
+days, and that I have shared his intimacy with Commandant Rattier for
+the last five years? I can vouch for them; I really can."
+
+She reined in her horse again and sat looking at all three with doubt
+still lurking in her eyes. Aylmer met her expression with unrestrained
+amazement. He found her mistrust of him a conundrum to which there was
+no answer. The Frenchman's shoulders rose and fell almost imperceptibly.
+His head was slanted with deferential acquiescence. He laid his hand
+upon Aylmer's arm.
+
+"Your horse?" he interposed.
+
+He pointed to it and to Absalaam, who had now arrived and was touching
+the wounds in its flank with delicate, probing fingers. The commandant's
+gesture seemed to imply that the situation in which they found
+themselves demanded a tactful retreat, and that here he indicated a
+dignified one.
+
+Aylmer still hesitated. He saw no reason why he should concur in his own
+dismissal; the idea grated on him. What had he done?
+
+It was Despard who took the edge of restraint off the situation. He
+swung himself back into the saddle, and pointed up the hill.
+
+"After all, the thing was a squeak," he allowed. "You are shaken." He
+turned and nodded slightly to the other two. "I will return and help
+with the horses; we shall have no other beat to-day."
+
+They smiled, bowed to his companion, and gave him answering nod. They
+understood. He was going to use the opportunity to sponsor them. Then he
+would return, and they would have their explanation. They watched him
+bend towards his companion as they rode away.
+
+"It is almost as if we diffused a contagion, you and I," speculated
+Rattier as they turned to Absalaam and the horses, but Aylmer made no
+effort to elaborate the issue. An inexplicable instinct to make the
+incident a personal rather than a general one had overtaken him. As he
+watched Despard ride away with his companion, he felt almost as if he
+were being defrauded. The relations between his cousin and her sister
+made a tie between Miss Van Arlen and himself; surely, in spite of
+everything, they were sufficient foundation upon which to found
+something more than a mere acquaintanceship. In the name of all the
+other decent-minded, clean-living Aylmers, he might have been allowed to
+make his and their protest against being held responsible for the
+knaveries of the head of their house.
+
+So it was with something of dissatisfaction in his aspect that he turned
+to Absalaam and the wounded horse. The Moor saw it but misunderstood its
+purport.
+
+"Merely a flesh wound, Sidi," he hastened to assure Aylmer. "A week,
+perhaps ten days, of rest and he is himself again. A small price to pay
+for so precious a thing as that child's life."
+
+Aylmer looked at him with tolerant amusement. Absalaam ibn Said had
+neither harem nor wife; his career had been notoriously one of unrest
+and adventure. These pious opinions issued oddly from his bachelor lips.
+
+"A small price indeed," he agreed pleasantly, "but a hundred youngsters
+run risks little less in the Sok of Tangier every day."
+
+The Moor made a sweeping motion of the hand, as if he suddenly dropped
+the subject of conversation from a higher plane to a lower.
+
+"The children of the Sok!" he cried contemptuously.
+"Khabyles--Arabs--Susi--Riffs! What are they? Little more than vermin;
+their ranks are replenished all too quickly as it is! But this one! Here
+we tell a different story, do we not?"
+
+Aylmer halted in his examination of the wounded pastern and looked up.
+There was something arresting in the Moor's vehemence.
+
+Absalaam caught the look and shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"The Sidi has not visited Tangier for five or six weeks?" he said.
+
+Aylmer nodded. And waited. He had had a good deal of experience of the
+Moor and his conversational methods. He was aware that the deferring of
+a climax till it could be launched on a tide of tantalization was the
+chiefest of them.
+
+"Therefore, Sid' Aylmer," continued the Moor, "you have not heard all
+the tales which center round this small one's fortunes?"
+
+Aylmer smiled and prepared to give his attention again to his horse. It
+was left to Rattier to ruin the pyramid of stimulation.
+
+"What tales?" he demanded laconically.
+
+Absalaam's brown eyes met both question and questioner with
+melancholy--almost, indeed, with scorn. How could one titillate, how
+could one embroider, how could one work up to a brave display of
+interest, if bald facts were to be wrung from one at this stage of a
+tale? He sighed.
+
+"Tales of his wealth and importance, Sidi," he answered, in accents of
+subjection.
+
+Rattier drew up the monocle which swung from a ribbon at his buttonhole
+and concentrated his stare upon the Moor.
+
+"Wealth?" he repeated tersely.
+
+Absalaam opened his arms to their widest and held his palms emptily
+outflung.
+
+"Wealth sufficient to buy all Tangier, all Fez, the whole of Mogrheb al
+Acksa, if a tenth of the reports be true. His life, therefore? How can
+one value it!"
+
+He beamed upon them. He had been robbed of his slowly forged
+culmination, but he had, at least, been able to offer them a surprise.
+
+Aylmer replaced upon the ground the hoof which he had been holding. He
+looked at the Moor good-humoredly.
+
+"So the gossip mongers of the Sok credit this infant with riches?" he
+said. "On what evidence, if any?"
+
+Absalaam made a motion towards the sea.
+
+"In the harbor, when you landed, did you observe a yacht, Sidi--a white
+boat, with lines of gold at her cutwater and figurehead?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That boat lies there at the service of that child. They have taken for
+him the Villa Eulalia; they have surrounded it with tents of men who are
+there to do no more than guard his safety; there are servants, horses,
+donkeys. The Gibraltar steamer brings packets of provisions or what not
+several times a week. In the town their money flows."
+
+Rattier dropped his eyeglass.
+
+"I think, _mon ami_," he said slowly, "that gold must be freer with them
+than gratitude. Were you thanked for what you did? I don't seem to
+remember it."
+
+Aylmer shook his head.
+
+"That is the mystery," he agreed. "I did little enough, but I was going
+to be thanked--till I disclosed my name. Then," he shrugged his
+shoulders, "you saw."
+
+He meditated a minute. Then he burst out laughing.
+
+"I was not allowed even to hold him, and I am not at all sure that I am
+not his guardian!" he said suddenly.
+
+Rattier's surprise was evident, but he managed to concentrate it in a
+monosyllable.
+
+"Eh?" he demurred wonderingly.
+
+Aylmer gave an emphatic nod of the head.
+
+"I was coming home from China at the time of the marriage of my cousin
+Landon with this child's mother. I broke my journey in New York
+specially to attend it. And Landon, merely as a form, asked me as his
+kinsman to be a party to his settlement. In certain circumstances,
+including his death, I was to be one of the trustees for his children."
+
+"And he is dead, this cousin?"
+
+"No, my friend. Merely divorced. Where do I come in--where?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DESPARD EXPLAINS
+
+
+"Suppose we sit down long enough to smoke a cigarette," suggested
+Aylmer. "Perhaps the thump I received just now has had a disastrous
+effect upon my limited intelligence, but I confess that Miss Van Arlen's
+deportment remains a matter of mystery. What have I done?"
+
+Despard laughed gently. He had strolled back from the camp to meet his
+friends and had found them superintending the obsequies of the boar.
+These were performed by a Spaniard, one of the human jetsam cast up
+everywhere along the North African coast by tides of hazard and
+adventure which set from every quarter of the Mediterranean. The true
+son of Islam will not touch the _haloof_, the unclean jungle pig. And so
+Senor Bernardo Albareda, penniless derelict and strongly suspected of
+being a fugitive from the Spanish convict establishment at Melilla, was
+extracting the tusks. He held them up with a dramatic gesture of
+admiration.
+
+"Twice the length of my central finger, which is not a short one!" he
+remarked airily, and used the occasion to exhibit the elegances of a
+hand which had patently not occupied itself lately with manual toil. One
+or two of his compatriots, who had been among the beaters, were given
+the task of disposing of the flesh and bristles, and departed under his
+escort, carrying their burdens dependent from a couple of poles, the
+Arabs hastening to avoid even the shadow of contamination which they
+cast, and spitting with undisguised disfavor as they passed. Despard
+accepted his comrade's invitation and joined the other two upon the seat
+which they had made of a fallen mimosa stump in the shadow of the olive.
+
+The major took out his cigarette case, found a match, and sent several
+tiny clouds rolling up among the branches before he spoke. And his
+answer was another question.
+
+"You read the details of the Landon divorce case?" he hazarded.
+
+"Yes," said Aylmer. "One could hardly escape it."
+
+"You remember, then, that at the close the respondent was very nearly
+committed for contempt of court?"
+
+"He lost his temper, or his head," agreed Aylmer, "and threatened his
+wife. I don't think any one attached much importance to his vaporings."
+
+"Ah!" Despard nodded his head thoughtfully. "I suppose that would be the
+point of view with most people."
+
+"Not with yourself?" suggested Aylmer.
+
+Despard shook his head.
+
+"I have known the Van Arlens for many years," he said quietly. "Perhaps
+you have forgotten that my own mother was an American, that a good deal
+of my boyhood was passed in New York."
+
+"I didn't know you knew the Van Arlens; in fact, I could hardly suspect
+it, when to the best of my remembrance you never even discussed the
+Landon divorce case with me."
+
+Despard nodded.
+
+"No," he said, in a dry, unemotional voice. "I did not discuss it with
+any one. And you, moreover, were an Aylmer."
+
+He was silent for a minute and the other two looked at him a little
+curiously. This was not the Despard they were accustomed to, a sportsman
+whose hobbies engrossed him to the exclusion of most other topics. This
+was a man who had the force of pent feeling behind his words.
+
+"The Van Arlens naturally did not seek outside society at the time of
+the case," he continued, "but I was on leave, and I saw a good deal of
+them. Has it occurred to you," he added suddenly, "that this child is
+not only heir to the Landon title but to the Van Arlen millions--at
+present?"
+
+"No," said Aylmer, "but I suppose he is the only direct male
+descendant."
+
+"Do you realize what that means in America? To be a Landon, only a
+barony, though I grant you an old one, is a small thing compared with
+being the grandson of--the richest man in the world."
+
+Aylmer was silent. The point of view was one that did not easily present
+itself to his British complacency. Rattier, too, though he nodded
+assent, did it without vehemence and with a tinge of reserve. Of a
+royalist clique, transatlantic caste was outside his experience.
+
+"At any rate your cousin Landon realized it at last in realizing what he
+was losing. He moved every legal lever he could lay his hands upon to
+retain the custody of his child and failed. He is to see him twice a
+year, for an hour. You will understand that his chances of winning his
+child's profitable affections are too limited for his taste."
+
+Aylmer's brows met in a tiny frown of perplexity.
+
+"Profitable affection?" he meditated.
+
+"John is eight. In thirteen years he will be of age. His father then
+will be forty-five, and quite capable of getting much enjoyment out of
+his son's unlimited income."
+
+Rattier gave a little hissing intake of the breath.
+
+"This Landon!" he murmured admiringly.
+
+"The Court decided, also, that the child must be brought up, for nine
+months of every year, at any rate, in England. This was modified, after
+medical examination and certificate, to include Europe and North
+Africa."
+
+Aylmer made a little startled motion which dropped the ash of his
+cigarette upon his knee.
+
+"Eh?" he questioned. "Medical certificate?"
+
+"Phthisis," rejoined Despard, quietly. "The little chap has the seeds of
+it, but with care the seeds need never come to growth. But he has to
+winter in the South, invariably."
+
+Rattier made a tiny caressing motion of the hand which seemed to imply
+infinite commiseration. Aylmer expressed the same emotion in a little
+inarticulate murmur.
+
+"And so--?" he questioned. "And so--?"
+
+"And so Tangier," said Despard, "which has other conveniences, for the
+moneyed. The law, here, is always behind the dollars, is it not?"
+
+The other two looked at him debatingly.
+
+"The law?" mused Aylmer. "The law?"
+
+"They have already had experience of it in Italy and Spain--the Van
+Arlens. A man like Landon can make use of it there to further his own
+purposes, against the law. The Spanish and Italian police? Can you
+expect them to interfere against a man's dealings with his own child?
+What do they know of the fiats of the British Courts of Chancery? He
+made two very nearly successful attempts to get possession of the
+boy,--one at San Remo, one at Taormina."
+
+Aylmer gave a little low whistle of comprehension. Rattier nodded, still
+with a sort of grudging admiration of this English lord's talents and
+persistence.
+
+"Have you got it now?" went on Despard. "Do you see where they stand?
+Here, under the protections of the Bashaw, where Landon can never
+overbid them, they enjoy a security which they can obtain nowhere else
+outside America or Great Britain."
+
+Aylmer's eyes filled with a sudden shadow of loathing.
+
+"The scoundrel!" he cried. "The miscreant!"
+
+Despard nodded.
+
+"Quite so," he agreed. "The epithets any decent-minded man would apply
+to him. Unfortunately, he is without shame, reckless, and heedless of
+everything but his passionate desire to turn defeat into victory. He
+will stop at nothing to get even with those who have so far triumphed
+over him."
+
+"And the boy's mother lives here--with her sister?" said Aylmer.
+
+Despard did not reply for a moment. There was a queer pause and catch in
+his voice as if he sought uneasily for breath.
+
+"Miss Van Arlen is here, and the old man, Jacob Van Arlen, the
+grandfather."
+
+"And the mother?" asked Aylmer, with a note of surprise in his voice.
+"Lady Landon, or does one call her Mrs. Van Arlen?"
+
+"She is broken down in health," answered Despard, in a curiously wooden,
+expressionless accent. "She has been--recommended to try for at least
+six months the effects of an Alpine Sanatorium."
+
+The two listeners understood, or thought they understood, and muttered
+their sympathy in an almost inaudible chorus.
+
+"Insane?" they whispered. "Insane?"
+
+Despard smote his hand down upon the rotting wood.
+
+"No!" he cried fiercely. "Her brain is as sound as yours or mine, but
+her heart has been frozen. By God! Try to think, imagine, if you can,
+what hell a woman has lived in who was the wife of Landon!"
+
+His passion seemed to choke him. His eyes glowed, his chest heaved, he
+was another man from the one who had sat down smilingly to smoke a
+cigarette with them a few minutes before. And the passion of his wrath
+infected his hearers. Imagination painted pictures in their brains;
+they, too, breathed a little faster as they listened.
+
+The gust of Despard's passion passed and left him calm again. He gave a
+tiny shrug of the shoulders, which seemed to imply apology. He began to
+speak with ordinary unshaken accents.
+
+"It was I who suggested Tangier to the Van Arlens. I am in garrison at
+Gibraltar; I can see them at frequent intervals; I introduced them to
+the Foreign Colony here. The Anstruthers have done their best to make
+them at home. I got Absalaam to be their dragoman, and I don't think you
+will find a better or more versatile one between Tripoli and Mogador.
+They have the most suitable villa outside the town. The Bashaw has been
+given to understand the situation, has been generously tipped, and is
+doing his best to keep his side of the bargain. The men who guard them
+are picked and know that matters will reach an extreme of unpleasantness
+for them if their vigilance is allowed to relax. All has been done that
+can be done. And yet--?" He shrugged his shoulders again. "They share
+the anxieties of Damocles," he added. "They live under a sword which may
+fall at any moment."
+
+He rose, flicked the cigarette ash from his sleeve, and made a motion
+towards the hill.
+
+"Shall we be getting on?" he asked. "The sun waits for no one."
+
+They rose slowly and began to follow the distant line of beaters. Aylmer
+linked his hand through Despard's arm.
+
+"Miss Van Arlen understood ... what we feel ... all we Aylmers, about
+Landon?" he asked.
+
+Despard hesitated.
+
+"I put it to her, strongly," he answered.
+
+There was something not entirely convincing in the reply. Aylmer's voice
+showed anxiety.
+
+"But--but she cannot imagine that we, or any decent-minded man, could
+view him with anything but loathing?"
+
+There was still a perceptible pause before Despard's reply.
+
+"I didn't tell her yesterday that you were coming," he said. "Indeed,
+Anstruther only informed me last night. I thought it would be well that
+you should arrive and make a good impression before she learned your
+name. Then, you see, as it happened, you exploded it on her rather
+startlingly. And she, at the time, was rather shaken."
+
+"And this means--?" said Aylmer, impatiently.
+
+"It means," answered Despard, debatingly, "that your name recalls
+memories to her which, unfortunately, do not prepossess you in her
+favor. And, I think, that, being a woman ... your service to the
+child ... your saving of him ... under the circumstances ... acted
+against you."
+
+Aylmer turned and looked into his friend's face with amazement.
+
+"But--but I don't understand!" he stammered. "That's unjust!"
+
+Despard shook his head.
+
+"Not entirely," he demurred. "It's feminine; it's jealousy. It is hard
+to her that you should have saved the child's life. I could see that,
+and combated it, during the few minutes in which we rode back to camp."
+
+Aylmer was frowning. He dropped Despard's arm, thrust his own hands into
+his pockets, and stared out into the distance. He shook his head.
+
+"No!" he said suddenly. "I can't quite follow it. No woman with that
+girl's ... eyes ... would be so ... shabby ... if she understood!"
+
+Rattier gave him an impulsive little nod.
+
+"If?" he enunciated slowly. "If?"
+
+Despard threw the Frenchman a grateful glance.
+
+"That's it," he agreed. "His name is Aylmer. So far she has not got
+beyond that fact, my friend."
+
+Aylmer looked round at them both. There was something calculating in the
+way in which he surveyed the two, as if they were factors in a situation
+which had hitherto eluded him, but which was now beginning to take
+definite shape. And his lips had set one upon the other in a rigid line.
+His chin seemed to have attained incongruous squareness beneath the
+suave droop of his moustache.
+
+"She's got to believe in me!" he announced grimly. "I won't let her be
+unworthy of herself."
+
+And the other two noticed that as he said it he nodded to himself two or
+three times decidedly. He drew himself up; unconsciously his carriage
+grew stiffer. It was as if he had mapped out and settled a matter
+definitely. He began to talk and laugh naturally, and on other subjects.
+And if any allusion to the day's adventure outcropped into the
+conversation he did not avoid it, but simply passed it by without
+comment. He had taken his line. The incident, apart from his resolution,
+was closed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As the three strolled up to the camp a man rose from the group which sat
+in the shadow of the awning at the door of the largest tent and came out
+to meet them. He was tall, white-haired, aquiline of feature. And his
+pervading characteristic seemed to be gravity. His figure and face alike
+were unbending.
+
+He made them a studied little bow.
+
+"My daughter tells me, Captain Aylmer," he said, "that I have to thank
+you for your prompt action on behalf of my grandson. You saved him from
+a situation of grave peril."
+
+Aylmer realized that this was without doubt Jacob Van Arlen. He
+suspected, also, why the old man had thus addressed him without waiting
+for an introduction. For men who are introduced, amid the intimate
+sociabilities of the Tangier Tent Club, at any rate, usually shake
+hands. Van Arlen's right hand held his sombrero; his left was at his
+side.
+
+Aylmer returned the bow.
+
+"I did no more than what had obviously to be done," he said quietly.
+"Despard merits your thanks more than I."
+
+The other looked at the major with a distinct tinge of relief.
+
+"Is that so?" he asked hopefully.
+
+"No!" said Despard, laconically. "Your thanks are not in the least
+misdirected, Mr. Van Arlen."
+
+The old man made another courteous inclination of the head.
+
+"I thought I could not so far have misunderstood my daughter," he
+answered. "I hope, Captain Aylmer, that while you remain in Tangier I
+may be permitted to serve you in any way which you like to command.
+Perhaps, though, your stay is short?"
+
+And there was hopefulness in this last query. It was patent amid the
+studied urbanity of the tone. In spite of himself Aylmer smiled.
+
+"I am a bird of passage," he said lightly. "I manage to take short leave
+for most of the Tent Club meetings, to which Colonel Anstruther is kind
+enough to make me welcome."
+
+He strode forward as he spoke and began to exchange greetings with Mrs.
+Anstruther, who rose to meet him. He had to hear the morning's story
+re-discussed, exclaimed over, criticized. He bore it, without
+impatience, but with a certain aloofness which gave the subject no
+chance to endure. He managed skilfully, at last, to divert the
+conversation into other channels.
+
+Anstruther, who had sat between his wife and Miss Van Arlen, had risen
+to welcome Commandant Rattier. The mishap to the latter's horse
+engrossed their attention; they wandered off together to examine the
+wounded limb. After a moment's hesitation Aylmer sank into the vacant
+chair.
+
+He looked round at the girl. Her eyes met his, but her hand, as if
+acting by some automatic command of the brain, touched her skirt and
+pulled it toward herself, and away from him. His lips grew a thought
+more rigid behind the veiling moustache. But his voice was entirely
+divested of any semblance of pique.
+
+"And how is my small cousin?" he asked pleasantly. "Has Selim persuaded
+him to take that long-deferred siesta?"
+
+Old Van Arlen stirred restlessly on his seat. He looked at Aylmer, his
+lips moved as if to speech, and then closed again. Miss Van Arlen sat up
+very straight.
+
+"Do you mean my nephew?" she asked frigidly.
+
+"Your nephew and my cousin," said Aylmer, cheerfully. "I hardly expected
+to find a relation here when I started this morning."
+
+Her eyes grew stormy with suspicion, almost with hate.
+
+"Are you sure?" she demanded suddenly.
+
+"Quite sure," said Aylmer, halting for a scarcely perceptible moment
+before her meaning reached him. "I have found only friends--so far."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+MR. MILLER
+
+
+Outside their own country two British types carry their caste marks
+patently. They are the tourist and the officer. Gibraltar abounds with
+both, the company of the first having an occasional and transient
+superiority when it is swollen by Transatlantic arrivals or intermittent
+yachting cruisers. But the officers of the garrison and their wives and
+daughters are the reigning members of the informal club which makes
+Society on the Rock. They know each other, they discuss each other; the
+longer they stay the more parochial grow their interests. Newcomers
+undergo a period of silent probation. They cannot slip in unobserved.
+The who and the whence test is applied to each with unction, sometimes
+without justice, but almost invariably with good-humor. As a consequence
+everybody, within limits, knows something about everybody else.
+
+There are exceptions, and one, an olive-complexioned, gray-clad,
+gray-haired, dark-eyed man, was walking steadily down the Waterport one
+sunny afternoon as a rush of cabs towards the custom-house proclaimed
+the incoming of an important steamer. Mr. William Miller had a
+pleasantly situated cottage in the South Town. The postman knew that he
+had many correspondents in Spain, England, Germany, and elsewhere.
+Moorish visitors from across the straits were not infrequent at a small
+office which he retained in Waterport Street. Men of letters, desiring
+information on recondite subjects, separated themselves from the
+frivolous landing parties of Messrs. Cook and called at the same
+address. No one had ever tapped the sources of Mr. Miller's encyclopaedic
+knowledge in vain. No one had found him otherwise than affable. And
+though it was understood that his activities were literary, no resident
+or tourist had successfully probed the nature of his life-work.
+
+The wives of many colonels had recognized this and had flung themselves
+with ardor against the breastworks of his imperturbability. Not one of
+them could look back with pride on any action in which they had won even
+a temporary advantage. Mr. Miller spoke freely, showed an intimate
+knowledge of men and manners throughout the civilized world, and
+appeared to manifest pleasure in sociabilities. His only attempts to
+return these lay in small but eclectic tea-parties whereat he displayed
+hoards of artistic treasures and discoursed learnedly of carpet dye and
+porcelain marks.
+
+But he was by no means a ladies' man. He accepted, and was welcome at
+the hospitalities of many a mess or gun room. He sang well and could
+play a more than ordinary effective accompaniment to a comic song after
+hearing the air whistled half a dozen times by its would-be interpreter.
+The impersonality of his social attitude prevented his being popular,
+but he was an institution. As he walked along he bowed, nodded, smiled;
+obviously he knew everybody. Obviously everybody knew him.
+
+As he walked across the sunlit square and dived into the deeply shadowed
+tunnel which is the Waterport, a tender fussed noisily up to the quay.
+Mr. Miller eyed the passengers on its deck keenly.
+
+The steamer was evidently a White Star in from New York. The load of
+colossal trunks upon the deck would have told him that apart from the
+accent of the passengers and the flag at the masthead. Baggage agents
+began to dart here and there; Mr. Cook's uniformed interpreters were in
+the forefront of the fray; Spanish cab runners yelled and grimaced.
+
+Mr. Miller stood aside without attempting to force a way into the
+tumult. His hands rested quietly together on the hilt of his cane. His
+brow was contemplative and unruffled. Certainly if he awaited anything
+he was in no hurry to find it.
+
+All things come to those who wait, and Mr. Miller had not to wait long.
+A man strode suddenly out of the custom-house gate, thrust aside the
+Spanish porter who was snatching at his handbag, and made a beckoning
+motion towards a cab.
+
+Mr. Miller strode quietly forward and reached it simultaneously with the
+fare.
+
+The man looked at him with a sudden irritable alertness and then broke
+into a grin.
+
+"You're here," he said, and flung his bag upon the seat. The other
+responded with a tiny shrug as if he deprecated the platitudinous nature
+of the remark. He motioned the man to take his seat, sat down beside
+him, and told the driver the name of an hotel. "Your man is looking
+after your heavy luggage?" he questioned.
+
+The other nodded impatiently.
+
+"Yes," he said. "Not that there's much to look after." He turned and
+glanced into his companion's face. "I'm getting down to bed-rock now;
+nothing left to waste on trivialities. I nearly came second class."
+
+Miller's eyebrows rose.
+
+"That would have been unnecessary." He speculated.
+
+"Imbecile, as it turned out," agreed the man. "There were some
+bridge-playing Southerners on board, old school, couldn't bring
+themselves to be civil to the New Yorkers, but ready to take an
+Englishman, and a lord, moreover, to their hearts. No high play, but I'm
+eight hundred dollars up on the voyage."
+
+Miller nodded placidly.
+
+"Bed-rock is quite a way down yet," he smiled.
+
+"Not if expenses are to mount as you advised me in your last letter,"
+snapped the other. "Has anything been done?"
+
+Miller shook his head slowly.
+
+"Force is beyond us," he said, "for we don't possess it. Bribery is out
+of the question; there is no one left by the other side who has not had
+his price. Opportunity may be ours. We must await it."
+
+"And waiting costs twenty pounds a week!"
+
+The gray man turned his opened palm outwards with a deprecative motion
+which was not English at all.
+
+"My dear Lord Landon, how can Opportunity be seized if there is no one
+to meet her when she appears?"
+
+Landon gave a dissatisfied grunt.
+
+"How many lacqueys have you set to wait on her?"
+
+"Six," said Miller, succinctly. "Six men of action, who would have
+succeeded before now, but for an accident."
+
+Landon's face took on the eager expression of a wolf to whom a distant
+taint is brought by the evening wind.
+
+"Eh?" he cried. "There has been a chance, then; their defences are not
+impregnable?"
+
+Miller shook his head.
+
+"They have been strengthened since," he said diffidently. "But the weak
+spot in them is the child himself. He has never had, if you will pardon
+the remark, proper control. He is frankly disobedient of the precautions
+with which they surround him."
+
+Landon grinned.
+
+"There's my blood in him," he chuckled. "And, by God, I'm fond of the
+little toad, too. It's not only to spite her, Miller, or for the money
+that's in it. I never took the trouble to whop him; I believe he'd come
+to me of his own accord, if he had the chance."
+
+"It's a large if," suggested Mr. Miller, politely.
+
+Landon made no retort. His face had assumed a meditative mask; his lips
+were firmly pressed together; he had the effect of one who calculates
+pro against con.
+
+"That's why I think it's time I took a hand," he said suddenly. "We'll
+knock off three of your six, Miller. I am prepared to be a host in
+myself."
+
+For the moment the other said nothing. They had swung out of the
+Waterport Street and turned the sharp corner which brought them to the
+entrance of the hotel. He listened quietly as his companion demanded the
+number of the room engaged for him, received his letters, and entered
+the lift. He accompanied him silently. It was not till they were left
+alone that he pulled a pocket-book out, tranquilly turned the leaves,
+and consulted an entry.
+
+"I note that I have had no remittance from you, Lord Landon," he
+announced, "since November."
+
+"Six weeks ago," agreed Landon, languidly. "Six times twenty is a
+hundred and twenty. You reinforce my argument, my good Miller. A hundred
+and twenty pounds gone and you show me--nothing."
+
+The other coughed a dry, perfunctory little cough.
+
+"As far as I am concerned, the money is, as you say, gone," he allowed,
+"but you have just come by one hundred and sixty sovereigns owing to the
+complacence of these Southern gentlemen on board your boat. That puts us
+right and safeguards another fortnight."
+
+Landon nodded and answered in a voice as dry as his own.
+
+"That is a matter for discussion," he intimated. "I should like to hear
+these expenses justified to some appreciable extent. What was the chance
+which failed?"
+
+"Though it failed," rejoined Miller, "it proved the advantage of
+constant vigilance. The child separated himself from his guardians in
+the very midst of the late afternoon traffic and got into the hands of
+one of our men. They reached the pier together; they were within an ace
+of success. Then Fate interfered--it must have been Fate," he
+interpolated with the ghost of a grin--"because her instrument was of
+your own house."
+
+Landon came to a sudden halt in the opening of an envelope.
+
+"What's that?" he cried quickly. "A relation of mine?"
+
+"Captain John Aylmer, R.A., Assistant Secretary to the new Military
+Works Commission," answered Miller, sedately.
+
+Landon swore. Then suddenly he began to laugh.
+
+"It's quaint," he conceded. "It's damned quaint, Miller. And he
+did--what?"
+
+Miller shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Interested himself in the situation, caused a delay which was fatal,
+for the moment, to our success. He cross-questioned the child and our
+man had to save himself, alone."
+
+Landon laughed again.
+
+"And he knew, this cousin of mine? He knew whose child it was?"
+
+"Not then, but now, I imagine. He has met him since, at the Tent Club.
+He has also met your late father-in-law."
+
+"What? The Kite--old Jacob--he's there?"
+
+"Personally superintending a situation which gets daily more
+impenetrable, for us. Each fright we give them adds another palisade to
+the defence."
+
+Landon took up the letters which he had laid down and went on opening
+and glancing through them. He pursed up his lips into an obstinately set
+expression; he assumed the air of a bargainer who has reached the limit
+of his purpose. For he fully understood the drift of Mr. Miller's
+remarks.
+
+"We had better be plain with each other," he said at last. "My little
+expedition to the States has been a failure. As a matrimonial
+proposition I am, for the present, out of the running. They told me to
+come again in a year's time. Title-hunting American women have short
+memories, but some beastly reporter recognized me and ran two columns of
+reminiscences of the trial. That queered me, and after all the decree is
+not made absolute for another six months."
+
+"Is this anticipatory of the announcement that those eight hundred
+dollars are the only support between you and bed-rock after all?"
+
+"You jump at my meaning. I'm going to take over the duties of your six,
+or of some of them, at any rate."
+
+The other's gray eyes reviewed his companion with a keenly calculating
+glance. There was no irritation in it, rather there was satisfaction.
+Mr. Miller did not present the aspect of a man whose chances of
+receiving a debt of one hundred and twenty pounds had been made
+doubtful. He had more the look of a bull speculator watching a tape as
+the eighths and sixteenths are added every few minutes to the stock
+which he commands.
+
+"You will fail," he said drily. "Without funds you must fail. One poor
+man, in spite of the story books, can do nothing against a hundred and
+wealth."
+
+"Possibly," said Landon. "But one may be permitted to try."
+
+"No," said the other, stolidly. "One may not be permitted, in Tangier."
+
+Landon looked up and for a moment silence hung heavily between the two
+men. The one who stood was the picture of heavy, imperturbable
+resolution. Landon, sitting back in his chair, was animate with energy,
+with a sort of tenseness which was almost magnetic. It was as if a
+panther faced a rhinoceros.
+
+Then Landon shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Am I being threatened, my dear Miller?" he asked quietly.
+
+"You are being informed," said the other. "The Syndicate which I
+represent is willing to finance you, for an adequate return. Without
+that it proposes to make Tangier an impossible residence for you."
+
+Landon stared his surprise and his obvious relief.
+
+"They are going to speculate in me?" He pondered for a moment. "I don't
+promise, or I haven't promised, that I shall allow old Jacob to buy the
+child back, if we get him, at all."
+
+Miller nodded weightily.
+
+"That does not matter to us," he announced. "That is as you like."
+
+Landon's eyes were still wide and debating.
+
+"Then your return comes--where?" he asked.
+
+"We are willing to wait for it," said the other. "The first service we
+require from you is that you will renew your acquaintance with your
+cousin, Captain Aylmer, and endeavor to remove the distaste which I
+regret to think he feels for your company."
+
+Landon bent forward, leaned his elbows on the table and his chin on his
+closed fists. He stared at his companion with a concentrated,
+dispassionate examination which seemed to probe and fathom through the
+depths of the other's impenetrability.
+
+Miller met the scrutiny with no other manifestation than an, if
+possible, increase of apathy.
+
+Landon dropped his hands slowly upon the table and gave his head a tiny
+shake.
+
+"I don't understand you," he said. "Why has my cousin a distaste for my
+society? We have never been in collision. As a matter of fact, he was
+best man at my wedding."
+
+"It is to be supposed that he read the account of your divorce," said
+the other, stolidly. "He has now made the acquaintance of your wife's
+relations."
+
+"I see," said Landon, slowly. "Is that all?"
+
+"Isn't it enough? Are you generally received?"
+
+There was something callous, almost brutal, in the man's tone. The tiny
+spot of color which began to burn in Landon's sallow cheek was evidence
+that he recognized it.
+
+"So," he answered, "I am to eat dirt at the hands of Captain John
+Aylmer? I am to appear to like it? Why?"
+
+"Because," said Miller, dispassionately, "you are practically
+penniless. That is your side of the question. Our side is that your
+cousin happens to be what he is--Secretary to the Military Works
+Commission, who hold the immediate future of Gibraltar in their hands."
+
+For the second time, and through a longer silence, the two stared at
+each other. As the fiery torch of comprehension burned brightly on
+Landon's face, rose to his forehead, seemed, indeed, to gleam in his
+eyes, his lips, which were at first grim and rigid, curled slowly into a
+sneer.
+
+"By the Lord!" he swore. "By the Lord, Miller, you have an impudence!"
+
+"I have a knowledge of values," said the other, impassively. "I wish to
+get my commission both ways. I expect it from you, because you get the
+job from no one else. I expect it from my employers, because you are
+practically the only tool at present, which they can use. I am perfectly
+open with you."
+
+"As open as the Pit!" snarled Landon. "As candid as midnight! Let's have
+a taste of it plainly. What is it you want of me--robbery?"
+
+Miller made a gesture of deprecation.
+
+"I want you to--borrow--unknown to your cousin, certain books, the
+nature of which will be indicated to you in detail."
+
+"And if I don't?"
+
+"You must, at any rate, try."
+
+"And if I won't?"
+
+Miller smiled.
+
+"We don't discuss absurdities."
+
+There was nothing manifestly menacing in this, but there was a sense of
+finality. It reached Landon like a shaft of cold air blown in through
+the suddenly opened door. Mentally he flinched from it; he lifted his
+shoulders into a shrug of resignation.
+
+"Where are his quarters?"
+
+"In the South Town near my own cottage. For the moment that does not
+matter. You meet him to-morrow, by accident. You do not know, you see,
+that he is here?"
+
+He consulted a small time-table.
+
+"We should be on the quay about three-thirty to-morrow, when the steamer
+gets in from Tangier."
+
+For the second time Landon expressed surrender with a passive shrug.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+LANDON'S NEW PROFESSION
+
+
+As Despard and Aylmer passed out of the dark of the Waterport into the
+sunlight of the square, two men, who walked in front of them, halted,
+shook hands, appeared to exchange an informal farewell, and separated.
+One, clad in gray flannels and a gray sombrero, turned to the left and
+began to mount the ramp behind the barracks. The other strolled slowly
+on.
+
+The two soldiers fresh from their crossing of the straits from Africa
+were hailed and questioned more than once by comrades or friends who had
+not been fortunate enough to share in leave for the Tent Club meeting
+and were anxious for the last details of sport. How did pig run this
+time? Had such and such coverts been burned as was reported? What luck
+had they had personally? Despard and Aylmer had to halt half a dozen
+times within the first two furlongs. They began to regret that they had
+not taken a cab.
+
+The man who strolled along in front of them halted, too, here and there.
+He did not appear to look round, but whenever acquaintances buttonholed
+the pair behind him it was noticeable that shop windows or Moorish curio
+sellers claimed his attention. He lingered, indeed, opposite a
+well-known book shop till his sudden resumption of his stroll brought
+him into collision with the others at the exact moment of their
+passing.
+
+He started, muttered a perfunctory apology, and then made an
+exclamation.
+
+"Jack!" he cried gladly, and held out his hand.
+
+Aylmer met his cousin's glance, first with surprise, then with a sudden
+stiffening of his lips, finally with frowning. He gave a side glance at
+Despard.
+
+The major's face was transfigured with wrath and loathing. He was
+looking at Landon as he might have looked at a poisonous reptile. He
+drew back a step of instinctive repulsion.
+
+Landon gave a bitter little laugh. He still held out his hand defiantly.
+
+"Isn't it fit to be shaken, Jack?" he asked. "Have I to thank the
+Galahad at your side for that?"
+
+Despard's eyes grew grim and set. He turned to Aylmer and nodded coldly.
+
+"See you later," he suggested, without another look in Landon's
+direction, and passed on his way with unhesitating strides. Venomously,
+malignantly, Landon watched him go.
+
+"I don't wonder he won't face me!" he cried with well-simulated passion.
+"By God, I don't!"
+
+He turned and stared at his cousin. Aylmer met his gaze coolly,
+unhesitatingly, and without a trace of relenting. For the second time
+Landon's bitter laugh escaped him.
+
+"You've had his version?" he said. "Well, I don't altogether wonder at
+you in that case."
+
+"I don't understand you," said Aylmer, quietly. "The public prints have
+made it quite evident that you're not fit for the society of decent men,
+if that is what you mean."
+
+"No!" snarled Landon. "It isn't what I mean. What I mean is that that
+blackguard who's just left us, curse him! has won all round. He took my
+wife from me and now he's taken my reputation, my honor, and he's gone
+far to take every friend I have. But by the Lord who made me, Jack, I
+thought that you might be left with some sense of justice!"
+
+"Justice?"
+
+Aylmer's voice made an echo to Landon's. "Justice?" he repeated. "You
+got that, or less than that in most men's opinion, in the divorce
+court."
+
+"I didn't!" said Landon, fiercely. "Ah, they made a pretty story of it!
+The blackguard who knocked his wife about, who thrashed his child, who
+took his wife's allowance and flung it under a dunghill of drink and
+devilry. That was me! Who gave evidence? The wife herself, who has since
+gone into a lunatic asylum. Servants who were bought with that old
+miser's gold. The man who wanted her--Despard!"
+
+In spite of himself Aylmer gave an almost imperceptible quiver of
+surprise.
+
+Landon laughed again.
+
+"Does that touch you?" he cried. "He wouldn't tell you that. Not of how
+he schemed, and laid traps, and sunk pitfalls for me, to catch me, as I
+was caught. I'm no saint, Lord knows, but I've never sunk to that. I've
+had my game and paid my price, but, by God, I've never cheated!"
+
+Aylmer's eyes still met his with level contempt.
+
+"I know Despard, I've known him since boyhood," he answered. "He does
+not do these things."
+
+Landon shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Of course! I'm down and you're all stamping me into the mud, lower and
+lower. You've all taken the accepted view, and when I cry out against it
+I'm told I've had my chance. So I did, but it was never a fair one."
+
+"You have still six months in which to give your version to the King's
+Proctor if you have any new facts to support your statement," said
+Aylmer, coldly.
+
+"Facts! How am I to get the benefit of facts when the other side can
+manufacture answers for them with a dollar for my every penny? I've
+supplied 'facts' to the King's Proctor till I'm sick of the sight of his
+office paper assuring me that he has 'no evidence to justify my
+contentions.' I can give facts enough. It's a hearing I want--an
+impartial hearing!"
+
+Aylmer shook his head.
+
+"You got it," he said doggedly. "You got it!"
+
+Landon rapped his stick upon the pavement.
+
+"I tell you I didn't!" he cried. "I tell you that I could tell you
+things that would prove to you--yes, prove--that the whole job was got
+up by that scoundrel who's just left us--got up by him to steal my wife
+from me. I ask you to hear me; I appeal to you to listen to my side; I
+appeal to your sense of justice!"
+
+Aylmer turned up the street.
+
+"If you think there is anything to be gained by it, say on!" he
+answered. "You can walk with me as far as my quarters."
+
+"You won't ask me in?" sneered Landon. "That's more than I can expect."
+
+"Some of the fellows might look in on me--decent fellows," explained
+Aylmer, drily.
+
+Landon gave a little gasp, halted, and leaned suddenly against the wall.
+He looked up at his cousin. His lips worked, he stammered, he broke into
+a panting storm of sobs.
+
+"I didn't deserve that! My God! I didn't deserve that!" he cried.
+
+Aylmer looked down at him and a tiny thrill of compunction shot through
+him. He hesitated. He did not believe in Landon's protestations. He
+knew, in every instinct of his nature, that Landon was a scoundrel. But
+he began to remember that it had not always been so. Things that had
+brought them together as boys came back to him. His memory suddenly
+framed a picture of that wedding nine years ago. Landon had gone to meet
+his bride gallantly, adoringly, that day. He had loved her then. Yes, he
+could not have acted that, he had loved her then.
+
+And Landon, watching narrowly his cousin's face, read the emotions as
+they chased each other across it as if they had been writ upon an open
+page. He hugged himself mentally.
+
+"That's what knocks him!" he told himself triumphantly. "The abased
+ingenuous sinner! A little more of that and, Great Nicholas! I have him
+by the short hairs!"
+
+He pulled himself together with a well-acted effort. He turned and drew
+back.
+
+"You cur!" he cried. "You cur, to hit at a man who's down!"
+
+Aylmer's tanned cheek showed through it a tiny flush. The dart had gone
+home.
+
+"When you prove that an apology's due, I'll make it."
+
+"In the street!" sneered Landon. "I'm to shout my wrongs, tell you all
+the intimate story of my provocation before the town. Thank you for
+nothing!"
+
+Aylmer made a little movement of the hand which implied irritation.
+
+"You can come to my quarters," he said, "but--"
+
+"This evening?"
+
+"No, this evening I'm dining out. You can come to my quarters. Until you
+give me reason to alter my opinion I don't introduce you to my friends.
+Is that understood?"
+
+Landon stood silent for another instant before he answered slowly.
+
+"Yes," he agreed. "You've read and been told enough to excuse you. Yes,
+I'll come. And in half an hour you'll be begging my pardon, or--"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Or what?" said Aylmer, quietly.
+
+"Or I shall know you've made up your mind not to be convinced."
+
+And then a sudden taciturnity overtook him. He marched along at his
+cousin's side, his eyes bent upon the pavement, his brows contracted. He
+had the appearance of one who considers deeply. John Aylmer made no
+attempt to resume conversation. He concluded that Landon was either
+piecing together a story out of unpromising material which would leave
+considerable gaps to be filled or, which was more likely, evolving one
+out of his vivid imagination. In either case he was content to leave the
+issue to be ascertained in the privacy of his quarters.
+
+They gained them uninterrupted. Aylmer made a sign towards a chair.
+Landon, after an expressive glance towards the Tantalus on the
+sideboard, sat down. Aylmer did not take the hint; he was in no mood to
+offer hospitality to this man, even to the inconsiderable extent of a
+whisky and soda.
+
+He looked at Landon.
+
+"Well?" he demanded curtly.
+
+Landon gave another look towards the sideboard.
+
+"I've hinted once," he said, with a laugh which he tried to make genial
+and offhand. "This time I'll ask bluntly for it."
+
+"For what?"
+
+There was no encouragement in Aylmer's voice, and his eyes were hard and
+unrelenting.
+
+"For a drink."
+
+Aylmer shook his head.
+
+"Suppose I hear your statement first," he suggested. "Then you can have
+a drink here, or elsewhere."
+
+Landon rose to his feet with a dramatic jerk. He turned abruptly towards
+the door.
+
+"That's enough, by God! that's enough!" he swore savagely. "I've taken
+your insolence once; I'll not take it again. I'm not fit to be offered a
+drink in your rooms; I'm to sit like some damned flunkey giving his
+character while you cross-examine me. I'll see you on the far side of
+Hell first."
+
+He reached the door, halted, and stood with hand on it, looking round.
+
+"You'll be sorry for this," he said. "I tell you that, when the truth of
+it comes to be known, as it'll be known some day, you'll be sorry for
+it."
+
+Aylmer looked at him with a steady contemplation which showed no signs
+of clemency. Landon flung open the door and passed out.
+
+"Cursed prig!" he snapped and descended the stairs into the street.
+Aylmer, with a slight shrug of the shoulders, turned towards his
+dressing-room.
+
+Ten minutes later Landon was enjoying his drink in Mr. Miller's
+pleasantly furnished apartments. His host had supplied it this time
+without any demur--with alacrity. He watched his guest dispose of it
+and hastened to offer another. This, too, disappeared down Landon's
+throat and a third was placed solicitously at his elbow. Not till these
+arrangements had been completed did Mr. Miller smirch his hospitality
+with any hint of business. But though he differed from Aylmer in this,
+he imitated him in the directness of his _pour-parlers_. He, indeed,
+used the same monosyllable.
+
+"Well?" he said inquiringly.
+
+Landon nodded with much satisfaction.
+
+"I got in," he said briefly. "I was only there two minutes, at a liberal
+computation, but I've found out and done all I required. He's dining out
+to-night. The books, as you expected, are in an ordinary bookcase, glass
+fronted, with an ordinary padlock on it. What fools these War Office
+experts are! There was a spare latch-key of his rooms hanging on a hook
+on the wall, for the servant, I suppose. I nicked it as I went out. I
+met the servant on the stairs--just as well, if I run across him
+to-night. There will be nothing rummy in my returning to see his master.
+I purposely dragged my coat against the passage whitewash, and after he
+offered to brush it for me I gave him half a crown. So he's all right;
+he thinks I'm a worthy gentleman who ought to be encouraged to call
+often. Is that all right?"
+
+Mr. Miller smiled.
+
+"You show such talents and attention to detail, my dear Lord Landon," he
+answered, "that I grieve that I am not the happy partner of such a
+colleague permanently."
+
+Landon looked across at him with a grin.
+
+"Seriously?" he demanded.
+
+"Quite seriously," replied the impassive Mr. Miller.
+
+Landon meditated.
+
+"If there is good money in it--?" he mused slowly, but his host hastened
+to interrupt him energetically.
+
+"Excellent money," he assured him, "and we have always a use for a
+lord."
+
+Landon grinned again.
+
+"Perhaps my value will increase after this evening," he suggested. "When
+do you purpose going?"
+
+"Would half-past nine suit you?" said Miller, affably, and Landon
+nodded.
+
+"Charmed, I'm sure," he grinned again, and tossed off his third glass
+with unction. "Here's luck!" he cried, and Mr. Miller, who used spirits
+sparingly, and in the afternoon not at all, was forced to include
+himself in the aspiration with the good fellowship which is implied in a
+courteous bow.
+
+At half-past nine Aylmer's soldier servant found, as Landon had
+prophesied, nothing extraordinary in his master's guest's return. The
+glint of a second half crown shone persuasively in that guest's hand as
+he expressed his desire to write a note to await the master's coming. He
+was shown without any demur into the sitting-room, and supplied with pen
+and paper.
+
+But Landon's talents were not wasted on literary composition when he was
+left alone. He produced a pair of pliers and dealt very drastically with
+the padlock on the bookcase, opened the glazed doors, and ran his
+fingers down the numbers engraved upon the morocco-bound volumes. He
+selected one, opened it, flipped the pages, and finally came to a halt,
+his finger-tip poised above a plan.
+
+He closed the book and went to the window. He opened it noiselessly.
+
+"Number 34 North Front. Elevation of gun platforms with angles to east
+and south," he enunciated very quietly but very distinctly into the
+night.
+
+A grayness stirred in the shadow below the window. There was a whispered
+reply.
+
+"Right!" answered Miller's voice laconically, and Landon poised the book
+in mid-air.
+
+"Can you see it?" he asked, still below his breath. There was an
+affirmative grunt from below.
+
+The book left Landon's hand and fell through the night. There was a
+faint shock as it reached the waiting grip in the darkness.
+
+Landon quietly and methodically shut the window and turned to the desk.
+He leaned, pen in hand, over the note-paper.
+
+There was the click of a latch-key. He swung round to confront his
+cousin.
+
+For a second the two eyed each other in silence. Then Landon rose slowly
+to his feet.
+
+"I came, forgetting that you were dining out," he said. "I came because
+I reasoned that by now ... you would be wanting ... to offer me an
+apology."
+
+Aylmer looked at the desk. Landon followed the glance.
+
+"I was going to explain--why?" he added, pointing at the unsullied
+note-paper.
+
+And then Alymer's gaze, which had been concentrated on his cousin's
+face, slipped past it and found, by chance, the bookcase.
+
+His brows met in a puzzled frown; he made a step forward; he bent to
+examine the fractured padlock. Then he straightened himself and gave an
+exclamation.
+
+Landon was ready. He drew a revolver from his pocket; he held it by the
+muzzle. And the butt came down with business-like vigor on Aylmer's
+temple. He seemed to crumple up rather than fall. He slid against the
+bookcase to the floor.
+
+The dawn was breaking before, confusedly, achingly, consciousness
+wavered back to him again--the same dawn which saw a Spanish steamer
+drop anchor in Tangier's roads and Landon, with a satisfied smile, swing
+down the ladder into the boat which was to take him ashore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+VILLA EULALIA
+
+
+Aylmer looked up as Despard came into the room. A kit bag lay on the
+floor half full and Aylmer's man was packing it. Despard raised his
+eyebrows in surprise.
+
+"Going?" he asked quickly. "Where?"
+
+"Tangier," said Aylmer. "To-night, by the Forwood boat."
+
+Despard gave a little whistle.
+
+"And the Commission?" he objected.
+
+"I've had very special luck there," explained Aylmer. "Sir Arthur went
+down with influenza yesterday morning. So the Commission, instead of
+meeting this week as proposed, adjourns till the end of November."
+
+He leaned down, gave a searching glance into the bag, and closed it.
+
+"That will do, Sillery," he said to the servant. "I'll call if I want
+you."
+
+As the man went out Despard dropped down upon the sofa. He sat and
+looked across at his companion with a glance which blended inquiry and
+concern.
+
+"I've heard only rumors, so far," he remarked.
+
+Aylmer made a little gesture towards the bookcase, which was still
+broken but empty.
+
+"I came back unexpectedly last night. I had been discussing a point with
+the general at dinner and ran across to find a book to prove my
+contention. I found Landon here, ransacking the bookcase. One volume is
+gone. He took me unawares and knocked me out. I didn't come to for
+several hours."
+
+Despard made an inarticulate exclamation of anger.
+
+"And he escaped, out of Gibraltar?"
+
+"By the _Miramar_, so the police declare. A Spanish tramp, going down
+the Moroquin coast and stopping first at Tangier."
+
+"He's gone to kill two birds with one stone," said Despard. "And you are
+pursuing?"
+
+"Naturally," said Aylmer, in a very matter-of-fact voice.
+
+"And your leave home--Scotland--cub hunting?"
+
+"That goes, of course. Possibly, if ten weeks is insufficient, my
+secretaryship goes. Perhaps, old chap, even my commission."
+
+Despard got up with a startled jerk.
+
+"What's that?" he cried fiercely. "What's that?"
+
+Aylmer's hand made a deprecative motion.
+
+"My duty's plain, isn't it?" he asked.
+
+"No!" retorted Despard. "If these old women of Commissioners have no
+more sense than to direct you to keep important books in a simple
+bookcase in your quarters--"
+
+"Oh, the book?" interrupted Aylmer, placidly. "Of course, there's the
+book."
+
+Despard halted, hesitated, and looked at his friend with curiosity.
+
+"You mean the contents of it? You can't help them getting known?"
+
+Aylmer nodded.
+
+"We must recognize the fact that they are known by whoever buys them,
+or whoever hired Landon to steal them."
+
+"Then why worry; why pursue, why start on this wild-goose chase?" He
+pointed to the great bruise on Aylmer's forehead. "It's outrageous, with
+that on you. It's probably dangerous."
+
+For a moment Aylmer was silent. He stood looking at Despard, and his
+eyes seemed to express a sort of speculative criticism.
+
+"Landon is my cousin," he said at last, as if he put the keystone to an
+argumentative arch.
+
+"What of it?"
+
+For the second time Aylmer hesitated before he spoke.
+
+"It seems to me," he said slowly, "that in this part of the world I am
+responsible for the good name which he is smirching. He has gone to
+Tangier--not only to save his skin. He has gone to commence a campaign
+of terrorization against the Van Arlens. Merely as an Aylmer I have to
+pit my hand against his, merely to clear our name and to do my duty. And
+there is more than that. Since Landon, for moral purposes, is dead, I
+consider that morally, and very possibly legally, I am the child's
+guardian. To keep my trust I have to safeguard the child from his
+father."
+
+Despard tapped his fingers doubtfully upon the mantelpiece.
+
+"And the Van Arlens?" he questioned.
+
+There were tones in his voice which made Aylmer pause over his
+portmanteau.
+
+"The Van Arlens? I am, of course, going to them direct."
+
+Despard hesitated.
+
+"You can't work with them," he said at last. "They won't accept your
+help."
+
+A flicker of emotion, first of pain and then of purpose, gleamed in
+Aylmer's eyes.
+
+"But they may need it," he answered. He looked at Despard searchingly.
+
+"And why not?" he went on. "What have they against me except my name?"
+
+"You don't know what it has come to mean to them, in eight years," said
+Despard, quietly.
+
+And then a queer little silence fell between them, an interval which
+seemed charged with the electricity of emotion. Despard looked at
+Aylmer. His friend was staring in his direction, but with a meditative,
+impersonal gaze which seemed to glance through--not at--him. And a smile
+grew faintly about his lips, though these, indeed, were pressed firmly
+together.
+
+He straightened his shoulders, he sighed.
+
+"Of course I start handicapped," he allowed. "But I can run a waiting
+race." And then he gave an involuntary start and a quick, curious glance
+at his companion. "We aren't competitors?" he asked suddenly.
+
+The crimson surged up under the tan on Despard's forehead. He laughed
+harshly.
+
+"The race was run and I was beaten, nine years ago," he said. "There
+will be no other entry, for me." He walked up to Aylmer and laid his
+hand upon his shoulder.
+
+"God knows, old chap, I wish you luck. But you carry weight, there's no
+denying that."
+
+Aylmer nodded again.
+
+"To carry weight one wants a stayer," he said. "And I can stay,
+Despard."
+
+The other nodded.
+
+"Yes," he said quietly. "You can stay. And as far as I know, the course
+is clear." His voice halted and stumbled queerly. "I ran straight, too,
+but I was fouled."
+
+And with a grip of Aylmer's hand he went out, to lay the balm of hope
+against the unhealed wound fate had dealt him, nine long years before.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As twenty-four hours later Aylmer climbed the steps from the water's
+edge to the pierhead of Tangier, a red fez was doffed from a
+close-cropped skull and out of a little crowd of hotel touts a Moor
+saluted with a welcoming smile.
+
+"A pleasant surprise, Sidi," he remarked affably. "There is no hunt
+abroad to-day."
+
+Aylmer shook his head gravely.
+
+"Not in thy meaning, Daoud," he answered. He moved closer to him. "A
+Spanish boat--the _Miramar_ came in at dawn?" he questioned.
+
+The Moor hesitated and then turned to shout to a companion. The man
+answered with a laconic affirmative.
+
+Daoud nodded.
+
+"Yes, Sidi. She came in. As you see, she has gone again."
+
+"Who landed from her?"
+
+Again Absalaam put queries to the assembled loafers. They answered
+obscenely but with directness.
+
+"A man came ashore with the captain and did not return with him," said
+the Moor. "Is this, then, an affair of importance?"
+
+"I will give fifty dollars to him who brings me face to face with that
+man," said Aylmer, quietly. "Let your fellows know this."
+
+Absalaam frowned ferociously and then laughed, a queer, high-pitched
+nasal laugh.
+
+"My fellows!" He swept his hand towards the pier loafers witheringly.
+"Does the Sidi think that I am of this noble company of--of dogs and
+eaters of dirt?" He laughed again, cheerfully this time. "After all, I
+have given the Sidi every reason to believe it. But it is not so. My
+work in Tangier sends me strange companions, but I am not of them. And
+there is no need that these should debauch themselves with your fifty
+dollars, Sidi. I will see to this thing!"
+
+Aylmer made a gesture of assent.
+
+"As you will, so that the matter is done with speed. I stay at the
+Bristol. For the moment I visit the Villa Eulalia."
+
+"You can spare yourself the heat and the mounting of the hill, Sidi.
+They of the villa set forth on an expedition to the lighthouse this
+morning."
+
+Aylmer came to a halt, irresolute.
+
+"This is not mere talk; you know it?"
+
+The Moor looked at him with sombre eyes which, however, barely hid a
+twinkle.
+
+"The lady, the little lord, and their attendants went; this I saw
+myself. Absalaam ibn Said, their dragoman, is my cousin. I spoke with
+him."
+
+"The old man?"
+
+Daoud's shrug conveyed the fact that he was sufficiently conversant with
+the customs of Nazrani to have neglected the movements of one who could
+surely not claim the attentions which were notoriously the due of his
+daughter.
+
+"I did not concern myself to notice the old man, Sidi. If your business
+is with him, doubtless it is God's will that he awaits you."
+
+He waved towards the town with a determined and energetic sweep of the
+hand.
+
+"I go, to earn your dollars, Sidi. One hour may suffice me; perchance I
+must waste three or even four. But I shall find him, have no doubt of
+the matter. Have I your leave to depart?"
+
+As they passed together under the shadow of the Marsa gate, Aylmer
+nodded and the next moment passed alone into the crowd. A side alley had
+swallowed Daoud as if by magic.
+
+Aylmer joined the main stream of traffic which breasted up past the
+Mosque and the little Sok towards the Gate of the Great Market, and so,
+past the hovels of the desert vagrants which cluster round the walls, to
+the Marshan and the European quarter outside the town.
+
+A little apart from the cluster of Legations stood the Villa Eulalia,
+encircled with its tiny park. This, in its turn, was bounded by a high
+wall of plaster or dried mud. The entrance led under an archway by a
+porter's lodge.
+
+A Moor in a spotless bournous appeared and made a grave gesture of
+obeisance as the visitor stood in the shadow of the porch.
+
+Aylmer presented his card.
+
+The man inspected it and pulled a cord. Some way off, inside the house,
+came the clang of a bell. Another man emerged, took the card which the
+porter handed him, and disappeared. All this time Aylmer still stood
+outside the gate.
+
+Perhaps a certain irritation showed on his face, for the porter made a
+gesture of deprecation.
+
+"If the Sidi would sit--?" He submitted courteously, indicating his own
+chair. "I do not know the Sidi," he added, with another tiny shrug, "or
+else--" His voice died away. He let it be inferred that circumstances,
+not his own desire, stood between the visitor and instant welcome.
+
+Aylmer smiled.
+
+"Strangers do not have the entree?" he asked, as he seated himself.
+
+The man bowed a grave affirmative.
+
+"These are my orders, Sidi," he answered. "But if the Sidi comes again
+he will find that I have a good memory. I do not forget a face."
+
+Aylmer nodded. "I hope to prove it, my friend," he said quietly, and
+then sat silent, reviewing his surroundings.
+
+There is probably no more beautifully situated dwelling in Africa than
+this wide one-storied house upon the knoll which dominates the Marshan
+with Tangier at its feet. Beyond the clustered houses of the town lies
+the blue of the bay. Beyond that again the gray vagueness of Gibraltar,
+Cadiz, and the cork woods of Spain. On clear days, high, white, and
+mystical looms, above all, the snow of the Sierra.
+
+Far to the east stands the ring of mountains which encircles Tetuan, and
+this, for many months of the year, has its own crown of white. Away to
+the west is the infinite emptiness of the Atlantic beyond Spartel, while
+southward, a barrier between the sea and the desert wastes, Sheshouan
+rears up its mighty crest. To whichever quarter the eye turns there is
+loveliness--loveliness both of color and of line. And the lucent
+clearness of the atmosphere emphasizes both. Sometimes the mist floats
+in and covers the seascape with a cloud of mystery, but it is seldom,
+save in the short time of the rains, that the landward view is anything
+but sun-swathed. And the sands which stretch between the river and the
+town walls seem to suck in his rays and render them back from their
+yellow richness when his face is obscured.
+
+What nature has done for the distant views artifice has graven upon the
+immediate surroundings. Pipes laid down to the little River of the Jews,
+which babbles below the knoll, bring up water to irrigate the lawns
+which surround the verandahs. Nowhere in Tangier is there such a carpet
+of living green. The creepers climb the verandah posts and trail
+unrestrained upon the roof. Great white, red, and yellow flowers swing
+from pole to pole as the sea breeze freshens; trailing tendrils of vine
+and clematis nod through the open windows and mingle with the cords of
+the string curtains. And the plash of water adds to the sense of leisure
+and repose. A little fountain plays ceaselessly from the summit of a
+massed pyramid of rocks and rambles down into the grass between
+clustered ferns. In masses of six and seven the date palms fling shade
+from trunk to trunk.
+
+Peace was the pervading element, Aylmer told himself, as he looked down
+the shady alleys and listened to the voice of the fountain, and yet
+peace, as facts went, was further from this abode than from the clangors
+of the market-place in the faction-riven town at their feet. This was no
+house of pleasure; it was a fortress, with the enemy ever at the gate.
+
+The precautions of his own entrance were sign enough, but other things
+bore witness. A score of gardeners was not necessary to tend the two
+acres of pleasaunce, elaborately planned and kept though they were.
+There was no entrance save the one; two others had been solidly walled
+in. Bars were on the windows; massive bolts upon the inner wooden gate
+beyond the iron one.
+
+Remembering to whom this debt of anxiety and watchfulness was due,
+Aylmer set his lips yet more grimly as he waited. Landon should pay to
+the uttermost, not only for the wrongs which he had heaped year by year
+upon his wife and her relations, but for the injury he had done to those
+of his own blood. Aylmer's eyes grew hard; his color rose angrily. He,
+John Aylmer, a reputable man, sat and waited admission to a house like a
+common mendicant, because Landon was a scoundrel. And beyond this, was
+there not more? Had he not had to endure a look of repulse, of loathing,
+from eyes--for the first time he confessed it, even to himself--which
+had become to him the very eyes of Fate. By God! Landon should pay
+bitterly for that!
+
+A step upon the gravel scattered his reflections. He looked up. Mr. Van
+Arlen was coming towards him, his head bent to that courteous, suavely
+interested inclination which is a relic of the old school of politeness.
+No man under sixty has had the time, or the inclination, to practise
+these old-time graces.
+
+Aylmer rose, and held out his hand. Mr. Van Arlen, with profuse
+gesticulations, insisted on personally bringing forward a couple of low
+deck chairs into the shadow of the palms. He waved his visitor to take a
+seat.
+
+Aylmer bowed, but preferred, he said, to stand. There was a significance
+in his tone which did not escape, was, indeed, not meant to escape, his
+companion. The old gentleman gave him a keen and somewhat disquieted
+look.
+
+"But I cannot sit if you do not," he protested. He gave the back of the
+chair a seductive little pat. "Let me persuade you," he pleaded
+anxiously.
+
+"Mr. Van Arlen," said Aylmer, slowly, "I am not received here as a
+friend. I prefer, therefore, to give my message standing, as a matter of
+business."
+
+The gray, furrowed face flushed.
+
+"My dear sir!" protested the old man. "My dear sir!"
+
+"You obviously evade my hand; you do not desire to ask me inside your
+house?" insisted Aylmer, quietly.
+
+The other raised a hand which shook deprecatingly. But Aylmer
+forestalled his attempt at speech.
+
+"You do these things, or rather you avoid doing them, without any
+personal cause of complaint against me, but because my name is what it
+is?"
+
+Van Arlen's hand fell to his side. The pained remonstrative look faded
+from his eyes. His lips, which had quivered, grew suddenly set and were
+firmly pressed together. He seemed to increase in stature.
+
+"Is not my reason good?" he cried sharply, as if some relentlessly
+passionate impulse mastered all restraint.
+
+"No," said Aylmer, quietly, "though I grant your provocation has been
+ample. Let me tell you this. If there are any men breathing whose
+loathing of your son-in-law can equal your own, it is those who are
+tainted with his name. In the name of my kinsmen, a name all reputable
+till Landon smirched it, I tender you their sympathy and regret."
+
+For a long instant the gray eyes beneath the grayer eyebrows searched
+Aylmer's face. Doubt, perplexity, and then finally a thrill of obvious
+relief passed across the waxen face. Aylmer's hand was taken; he was
+gently propelled towards a chair.
+
+"I have suffered much; can I be forgiven?" said the old man wearily.
+"Can you make my excuses valid to yourself?"
+
+"They were written, and the shame of our family with them, all too large
+in the press of two hemispheres," said Aylmer. "God knows I am not here
+to-day to bring anything more than such little reparation as is within
+my power."
+
+"Reparation?" Van Arlen's tone was more than surprised; it was startled.
+
+Aylmer nodded.
+
+"I came to give you information of Landon's whereabouts. He is here in
+Tangier, Mr. Van Arlen. I came to put you on your guard, and at the same
+time to offer you my assistance."
+
+Quickly, accurately, and in as few words as possible he outlined the
+events of the previous evening. Silently, but with growing anxiety, Mr.
+Van Arlen heard him to the end.
+
+He rose, trembling a little, as Aylmer concluded.
+
+"You will excuse me if I leave you to--to give some orders. The one
+outstanding fact in your story for me is that Landon is here, and that
+my daughter and the boy are on this expedition. They have their usual
+attendants, but--but--" He halted, stammering. "He--he may poise his all
+on one last attempt? He may get together a following which would
+overpower them?"
+
+Aylmer looked at him debatingly.
+
+"Yes," he allowed. "That is a possibility to be faced though I believe
+his resources are, or were, meagre. You will take more men and go and
+meet them?"
+
+The old man made a gesture of apology.
+
+"Yes," he said. "And, if you will pardon my curtness, at once."
+
+"The sooner the better," agreed Aylmer, quietly, "as I hope to be
+allowed to accompany you?"
+
+Van Arlen gave a little start, one that seemed to imply a doubt or a
+question. As if he replied to it, Aylmer gave a little nod.
+
+"You must accept me as an ally, my dear sir," he said. "You have seen
+that I have a pressing need to meet Landon. I should like to do so in
+your company."
+
+The other still hesitated.
+
+"Why?" he asked.
+
+"Because I would like to make the interview convincing--to you," said
+Aylmer. "Because I covet your friendship; because I want you and your
+family to revise their estimate of the name of Aylmer. Because," he
+paused and deliberated over his words for a moment, "because I want to
+be received by you at Villa Eulalia, inside."
+
+Again the gray face flushed; again the hand was raised in deprecation.
+And then the bell in the porch rang furiously, and continued to ring
+till the porter emerged frowning from his lodge.
+
+Aylmer heard the sound of blows and his own name repeated in fierce
+interrogation. He recognized the voice. It was Daoud who was shouting
+and endeavoring to gain entrance in the face of the porter's emphatic
+protests.
+
+As Aylmer advanced to the bars, the tumult ceased.
+
+"Sidi! Sidi!" cried the Moor. "Your man left by the Larache road three
+hours back. A company of ne'er-do-wells have taken a sudden impulse to
+visit Arzeila, or so they said. He joined himself to them, wearing
+native dress, and was accepted by them without comment. Surely there is
+something of strangeness and importance in this. I have run, I have
+sweated, to let you know!"
+
+Van Arlen gave an exclamation of alarm.
+
+"It is as I thought!" he cried. "The Arzeila road? That is a blind. They
+can make a cut across towards Spartel at any moment." He shouted towards
+one of the watching attendants; his voice seemed to gain new force as he
+issued his orders alertly. He faced Aylmer again. "It is a matter of
+speed," he exclaimed. "I must hasten--at the gallop."
+
+Aylmer gave him a protesting look.
+
+"Not I! We," he corrected.
+
+For a moment the other still hesitated. Then a smile broke into being in
+his sombrely weary eyes.
+
+"We, then," he agreed. "Even the gentleman who has sadly impaired the
+distinction of my porter, if you can guarantee him. We may need all the
+help we can get. Certainly we! God send we may be in time!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE FIRST TRICK IS LOST
+
+
+The cavalcade of horsemen swept along a level plain of beach and from
+there turned aside to gain the broom-covered slope which led towards the
+cliff top. The white column of the lighthouse, which had been their
+guide heretofore, disappeared behind the shoulder of the ascent. It was
+no more than a couple of miles away. The riders spurred their horses up
+the steep, Aylmer and Van Arlen leading. The edge of their anxieties
+grew blunter as they neared their goal. They might be in time to meet
+and safeguard those they sought before they left the shelter of Spartel.
+
+As they topped the rise and looked across the undulating stretch of
+green which lay before them, Daoud, riding behind Aylmer, gave a
+triumphant shout.
+
+"_La bas, alkumdullah!_" he cried fervently. "No harm, thanks to God.
+The lady is even now coming towards us with her party unharmed."
+
+Their eyes followed the direction of his finger. A great sigh of relief
+broke from Mr. Van Arlen's lips.
+
+A party came slowly towards them, a couple of furlongs distant. Seven or
+eight were men mounted on barbs, and armed, in spite of prohibitions,
+with Remington rifles swung across their laps. In front of them, a
+couple of mules paced doggedly on, carrying two white-clad figures. At
+their bridles were _djelab_-clothed youths, whose adjurations of their
+charges were audible even at that distance, so still was the evening
+air. Two or three dogs chased each other and supposititious partridges
+from tuft to tuft.
+
+Van Arlen and Aylmer saw that they were seen, but not recognized. The
+muleteers halted and cried loudly to the guard. The horsemen looked up,
+whirled up their rifles with their right hands, and spurred to the
+front.
+
+Daoud's bull voice stormed the cliff echoes.
+
+"Absalaam--Absalaam ibn Said! Son of foolishness! It is I, Daoud, with
+Sid' Aylmer and thine employer!"
+
+The rifle muzzles were lowered; the horsemen drew aside, and the two
+white-clad figures led again. A minute later Aylmer reined in his horse,
+and raised his helmet at Miss Van Arlen's side. Daoud, with a
+self-satisfied smile, was understood to explain that owing to his
+unparalleled management the expedition had resulted in an unprecedented
+success.
+
+The girl's eyes were raised questioningly, first to her father's face,
+and then doubtfully, almost, indeed, unwillingly, to Aylmer's. She bowed
+to him coolly, not ungraciously, but with no effect of welcome. He sat
+silent, watching as she listened to the explanation which the elder man
+gave in a rapid undertone.
+
+She made no comment till he finished, but at the first mention of
+Landon's name she unconsciously, as it seemed, edged her horse in a
+direction which took her away from Aylmer and closer to her small
+nephew, who sat on his gray donkey, staring at the newcomers with the
+frank astonishment of childhood. Aylmer noticed the movement. Was it
+instinctive maternal impulse which drew her to her charge when she heard
+that danger threatened him? Or was it antipathy for himself--the
+antipathy which long prejudice had given her for all who bore her
+brother-in-law's dishonored name? The shadow of doubt clouded his eyes,
+but his lips grew hard and resolute. Despard, if he had been there,
+would have recognized the symptoms. It was with that expression that
+Aylmer had led his guns into action on Colenso's already forgotten day
+of blood.
+
+But as Mr. Van Arlen's narrative continued, the girl's features relaxed.
+She turned and for the second time looked at Aylmer, doubtfully, indeed,
+but with the doubt of one who reconsiders, whose verdict is shaken by
+appeal.
+
+"Captain Aylmer has been at considerable trouble to warn us," she said.
+
+Aylmer shook his head.
+
+"No," he said quietly. "The warning I brought you was only part of my
+obvious duty. Surely you see that?"
+
+There was a queer note of feeling below the restraint in his voice. She
+recognized it and interest grew in her glance. She looked at him keenly.
+
+"After all, you have put yourself out to assist us in what is solely our
+own hazard," she protested. But there was something in her look which
+seemed to put the emphasis of her words awry. Was she hinting that he
+might have minded his own business, or was she pricking his sense of
+honor purposely, to judge him out of his own mouth.
+
+"I thought of your hazard, truly enough," he answered slowly. "I was
+thinking, perhaps more earnestly, of my own and my family's reputation.
+You forget that if you and your father have a heavy reckoning against my
+cousin, his own kinsmen, whom I represent, consider that theirs is no
+lighter."
+
+She considered him gravely.
+
+"No," she answered quietly. "No, I did not get that point of view. I did
+not even believe it a possible one, amongst Aylmers. There I have to ask
+your forgiveness."
+
+There was the hint of a smile lurking in her eyes, something that hinted
+that she exaggerated in saying this and knew it. But there was perfect
+seriousness in his reply.
+
+"That is taken for granted. And my position in this matter is taken for
+granted, too?"
+
+She looked at him questioningly again and then at her father. The latter
+smiled.
+
+"Captain Aylmer has his own grudge against this child's father. He
+offers us his co-operation."
+
+"And I ask for the friendly treatment of an ally," added Aylmer,
+quietly.
+
+Her look was still doubtful and, unconsciously, perhaps, she frowned.
+
+"Considering what we already owe you--" she began. He interrupted with a
+gesture.
+
+"You owe me nothing," he said. "If you reckon profit and loss in your
+dealings with Aylmers, you have a wide balance against you. All I want
+is your friendly tolerance, while I pay in instalments."
+
+She still seemed to ponder his proposal, to review it with the interest
+of a curiosity which has been imperfectly fed.
+
+"What is your ultimate goal, then?" she asked.
+
+He hesitated. A queer glint of passion shone in his eyes to sink into
+shadow again.
+
+"My goal is the trapping of Landon into an English gaol, for espionage
+and robbery. Or--" He shrugged his shoulders meaningly.
+
+"Or?"
+
+"Or his death," he said, in very distinct, level tones.
+
+"Ah!" The exclamation came from her almost unconsciously. Her face shone
+with a sudden alertness, her expression warmed, her eyes grew bright.
+
+"You would not hesitate--at that?" she demanded.
+
+Mr. Van Arlen made a little inarticulate murmur of protest; his hand was
+stretched towards her with appeal.
+
+She disregarded it. Her eyes were fixed piercingly on Aylmer's face.
+
+He met her glance with matter-of-factness.
+
+"I should not hesitate, if need arose," he said.
+
+She drew a long breath. Her features relaxed.
+
+"Thank you," she said gravely. "Now I know where we stand. And
+then--that is all?"
+
+This time it was his eyes which held hers with insistence, almost with
+menacing, she told herself.
+
+"No," he said quietly. "That is--not all. But that, for the present, is
+enough."
+
+For a moment her heart seemed to halt in its beat, the blood rushed to
+her face, the pulse of anger which leaped through her gave her a queer
+sense of choking. For she understood. Incredible, monstrous, as his
+purpose appeared in the light of her loathing of those who bore his
+name, she had not misread it. His words? They were possibly nebulous.
+But his eyes? No. No woman could misunderstand that look. Steadfast,
+patient, determined--the unswerving gaze of the pioneer who sees the
+unseen goal with the eye of faith, and sees it won.
+
+She wheeled her mule with a fierce drag of the rein; her spur found its
+flank and forced it forward. She felt morally stunned by this--this
+insolence; mere words could not meet it. For the moment she felt
+herself deprived of weapons by the unexpectedness of the attack.
+
+Her movement set the whole party in motion. Her father reined up to her
+side. She stole a half glance at his face. There was a queer, partly
+grim, partly puzzled expression on it, but she read, too, a glint of
+humor? Her exasperation rose. Her father, even? Had he gone over to the
+enemy; could she no longer reckon that his support would not crumble
+from resentment into laughter? Oh, this imperturbable Englishman should
+pay for this! If there was one shaft of gall left in her woman's armory,
+he should pay! The insolence of the man--the unparalleled insolence!
+
+Behind her she heard his voice, addressed to Absalaam in trivial
+inquiry. She felt an overwhelming desire to forestall the answer with
+indignant words of bitter loathing. His impassibility excited her--the
+serenity with which he passed back, as it were, to little things after
+launching such a bomb. She gave a shiver of passion, or, perhaps, fear
+had its place in her emotion. There was something relentless in his
+attitude, something uncompromising.
+
+Absalaam's answer was forestalled, but not by her. Little John Aylmer's
+voice rang out, shrill with the joy of discovery.
+
+"The brown man!" he cried rapturously. "The brown man!"
+
+The other John Aylmer looked up. A couple of men had come into sudden
+view round a corner of the track. A clump of Spanish broom had hidden
+their approach; they gave an exclamation of alarm as they met the
+glances of the riders not thirty yards away.
+
+One Aylmer recognized at once. He was the man of the pier, the would-be
+kidnapper whose purpose he himself had frustrated at the moment of
+success.
+
+The other man made a movement to cover his face with the hood of his
+_djelab_, but by some apparent unadroitness let it fall further back.
+And so revealed his identity.
+
+It was Landon--brought to a sudden halt by surprise.
+
+Through a pregnant instant of silence they confronted one another. Then
+Aylmer spurred forward with a shout.
+
+"Don't let them escape!" he roared. "A hundred dollars to the man who
+takes him!"
+
+The two fugitives turned and ran desperately down the path, seeking
+wildly for an opening in the surrounding jungle. Surprise and terror
+appeared to have dazed them, for they passed several avenues of escape
+heedlessly, made half-hearted attempts to turn, and still blundered on
+between the caging walls of green. Aylmer thundered behind them, drawing
+nearer with every stride. He leaned forward in the saddle; his arm
+reached out within a yard of Landon's flying draperies; he spurred
+fiercely into his horse's flanks.
+
+The two men leaped right and left into the green thicket as divers leap
+into the blue. And in the same instant something rose out of the
+earth--something thin, snake-like, starting suddenly into being, as it
+were, from the concealing smother of the dust into a rigid line knee
+high. Aylmer's horse stumbled, shot forward, and went down heavily. His
+rider was flung far beyond him, moved spasmodically once, and then lay
+still. The squadron of charging horsemen were trapped in their turn. Not
+one escaped. The goad of Aylmer's bribe had sent every man of them
+charging in the wake of his leadership. The taut-held rope accounted for
+them all, or for all save one. Absalaam, a consummate horseman, reined
+in on the brink of disaster, rearing his stallion high into the air.
+
+The road was an inferno of yelling men and blood-stained horses.
+
+The few Moors who were not stunned and incapacitated by their fall had
+to endure the perils of half a hundred wildly struggling hoofs. Scarcely
+six out of the score who had thundered so carelessly after their easy
+quarry fought a way for themselves out of the melee unharmed.
+
+And of those six there was not one who did not come to a sudden halt
+with uplifted fingers as they gained the open road. A revolver barrel
+was pointed at each man's breast.
+
+Ten or a dozen men had emerged from the thicket. They used no words;
+their fingers, significantly pressed upon the triggers, were eloquent
+enough. Only one spoke--Landon, who strolled slowly and panting a little
+into the circle which the menace of his underlings had formed.
+
+He halted opposite Claire Van Arlen.
+
+"Eh, sister-in-law!" he chuckled smilingly.
+
+Her face was white, but her hand, which gripped the reins, was steady.
+And her gaze burnt upon his face in loathing and contempt.
+
+"Rather neat?" said Landon, amiably. "I plume myself. My resources were
+limited, you see. I may congratulate myself upon having used them to the
+very best advantage."
+
+Still she was silent and still her eyes flung him their message of
+hate. He gave a pleasant little laugh. He made a significant jerk of the
+head in the direction of the chaos behind him.
+
+"And the virtuous cousin," he said. "What a fall is there, is there not?
+A hundred dollars! He actually appraised my poor liberty so high!"
+
+For a moment the expression in her glance changed as she turned it in
+the direction of the still struggling horses and their riders. He saw it
+and laughed again.
+
+"You divide your anxieties," he said. "Let me relieve you of one!"
+
+He stretched out his hand and laid it gently upon his son's shoulder.
+"Are you coming with your father--to ride the black horse upon the
+sands?" he asked.
+
+The child looked at him debatingly. His face lit up at the question, and
+then shadowed again as he turned his glance upon the motionless white
+figure on the mule beside him.
+
+"Auntie won't have it--and Selim," he deplored.
+
+"Won't they?" said Landon, good-humoredly. "I think they will."
+
+He stared up in the girl's face with insolent satisfaction.
+
+"In fact," he went on, "they've got to. Vulgarly, my boy, they may not
+like it, so they must lump it."
+
+He made a gesture of command.
+
+"Come, my son!" he said, motioning him to dismount.
+
+A tension broke. She lifted up her riding-whip and struck hard at him,
+struck with the concentrated strength of passion and despair. He leaped
+aside, but the end of the lash reached him and left a staring weal of
+red upon his cheek.
+
+He cursed aloud; he made as if he would spring at her.
+
+A warning cry came from behind him; half a dozen revolver shots rang out
+upon the evening air.
+
+Absalaam, sitting stark upon his stallion, covered by the revolvers
+which encircled him, had struck his spurs against his horse's flank. The
+fire in the animal's blood had responded in a great leap forward. Landon
+wheeled round to see, towering above him, man and horse, looming
+gigantic against the glare of the sunset. Instinctively, automatically,
+he threw up the muzzle of his own revolver, and fired full at the Moor's
+broad chest.
+
+The other bullets flew wide, but that one, so near was the human target,
+had no room to miss. Absalaam fell limply, heavily from the saddle, fell
+at his mistress's feet. The horse tore past a dozen restraining hands
+into liberty.
+
+There was shouting, confusion, the rattle of other shots. And then the
+voice of the brown _djelabed_ man thundered out high above the uproar.
+
+"In God's name, Sidi, have haste. Four of them have fled into the
+thicket! God alone knows what help they may bring their fellows and how
+soon!"
+
+And Landon, who had been flung to his knees in the dust, rose swiftly,
+without another word snatched his son from the saddle, and led the way
+into the jungle.
+
+In five short minutes he had come, conquered, and gone. He had won every
+trick, every trick! Claire passed her hand across her brow as she stared
+at the huddle of wounded and--she shuddered in agony as the thought
+thrilled--perchance the dead! What lay within that ring of broken
+bodies--what? With white lips and fear-brimmed eyes she slipped from her
+saddle to see.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+AYLMER IS EXPLICIT
+
+
+It seemed to Aylmer that the world into which he woke was one of
+stillness, of neutral tints, of intrinsic peace. There was a hint of
+sunshine diluted by the green hangings in front of the windows, but no
+more than a hint. There was a faint echo of the sound of falling water
+floating in with the light, but merely an echo. There was, in fact, but
+the slightest suggestion of life in his surroundings, and that came from
+the silently regular rise and fall of the bosom of the sleeping man who
+sat at his bedside. Aylmer blinked and stared in mild surprise, for the
+man was Daoud.
+
+He moved restlessly under the sheets. Where was he? Into what unsought
+refuge had Fate flung him now?
+
+His movement, slight as it was, aroused the Moor. With a little
+self-reproachful exclamation he stood up and leaned over the bed.
+
+"Oh, Sidi!" he cried, "it rejoices my heart to read the light of
+understanding in your eyes."
+
+Aylmer blinked again bewilderedly.
+
+"Where am I and what do you here?" he asked.
+
+"You are in Villa Eulalia, Sidi, and where should I be but in attendance
+on my lord?"
+
+Astonishment lifted Aylmer into a weak attempt to rise. The Moor put a
+hand upon his shoulder and firmly pressed him back.
+
+"Nay, Sidi," he said respectfully. "The German doctor lord expressly
+forbade that you should raise your head from the pillow till he had seen
+you again."
+
+Aylmer began to feel as if his wits as well as his body had been
+bludgeoned. Circumstances seemed to have leaped freakishly beyond his
+recollection.
+
+"I was brought here when?" he asked.
+
+"Yesterday, Sidi. Your brain was sorely smitten inside your skull, or so
+I understood the man of medicines. For fifteen hours you have lain as
+one feigning death, though breathing. Now you have come into the right
+of your senses again. This the medicine man also prophesied."
+
+The puzzled frown stayed on Aylmer's brow.
+
+"And you?" he demanded. "And you?"
+
+The Moor answered with a demure shrug of the shoulder.
+
+"Your wounded brain has perchance forgotten, Sidi, that I entered your
+benign service on the morning of the day which saw you defeated by the
+treachery of that one whom we sought, you and I. My service has been
+constant ever since."
+
+He met his victim's increasing frown with complacent assurance as he
+spoke. Surely everything, he seemed to imply, was in order. And as the
+situation became clear to Aylmer's growing intelligence, the frown
+became an exasperated smile.
+
+"You have used my helplessness to impose yourself into this house as my
+body-servant," said Aylmer. "Oh, Daoud, you are of a deceitfulness
+beyond my unpractised powers of speech."
+
+"Speech beyond the mere limits of necessity was strongly discountenanced
+by the German doctor lord," said Daoud, hastily. "Has the Sidi any
+further desires?"
+
+"None, save for information. Speak thou! Give me the plain tale of all
+happenings since I fell into that trap upon the road. The man we
+sought--did he escape?"
+
+The Moor nodded.
+
+"He escaped victoriously, with all his following. He took also the
+child, the Sidi Jan, who, so they tell me, is the son of his house. They
+took themselves unmolested into the tangle of the broom, leaving of our
+company one dead--from the kick of a horse, Sidi--half a dozen
+senseless, yourself among them, Absalaam grievously wounded in the
+bosom, though like to recover, and all, save four or five, with bruises,
+broken limbs, or, at least, frayed and bleeding skin. So they fled, but
+Ali, of the Walad Said, who had been flung away from the hardness of the
+open track into the heart of the thicket, had taken no harm and followed
+them to the caves."
+
+Aylmer gave a start.
+
+"The caves?" he muttered weakly. "The caves?"
+
+"The Sidi knows them well. The caves of Hercules beyond Spartel, where
+the millstone carvers ply their toil and where the Sidi and other
+Nazrani ride forth to eat and drink upon occasion when they entertain
+their friends."
+
+Aylmer nodded. The caves of Hercules are the resort of many a picnic
+party from Tangier.
+
+"Leaving them there, he hastened back with news. The Sidi Van Arlen,
+lord of this house, was by then recovered of the stunning which he, too,
+had suffered, and weak though he was immediately led forth another
+company to search the caves. And this they did unsuccessfully, Sidi,
+learning from one of the millstone workers, who had doubted of the
+integrity of these sons of dirt before they saw him, and who had
+therefore hidden himself and watched them unseen, that after a rest of
+three or four hours the men, taking with them the child, had passed down
+to the shore, had there awaited and been taken off by a boat which
+delivered them, so he conceived, to a lateen which he could descry in
+the moonlight about three furlongs out. And in that ship they have gone
+we know not whither."
+
+Aylmer's fingers clenched and unclenched upon the coverlet. How
+thoroughly, how absolutely, they had been bested! But the account was
+rolling up. Ultimate defeat? His mind never even considered it. He
+merely put another item in the mental ledger from which Landon's account
+would one day be presented, and paid, in full.
+
+"Let not the Sidi imagine that we have sat inactive while these sons of
+unchaste mothers triumph. I myself snatched a hasty hour from your
+bedside to enter the town and set certain ones agog for news. The Sidi
+Van Arlen hath telegraphed to Spain; every Guardia Civile along the
+coast has knowledge of how a reward of a thousand pesetas may be gained.
+By favor of the captain of the French warship all other ships of the
+French marine within three hundred miles have been warned to challenge
+unvouched-for boats. How this is done I am unable to say, but so it is.
+Watch upon the seas is therefore being kept. Now steam is being raised
+upon the white yacht in the bay, that when news comes it may be followed
+without delay. Lastly, a special mission has been sent by favor of the
+Bashaw from town to town along the coast as far as Dar-el-Baida. Thus
+have we set a wide net. Yet it has holes in it, Sidi, and holes are what
+these jackals are ever quick to seek."
+
+With a sudden movement, Aylmer sat up. A frown and a gesture of command
+warded back Daoud's outstretched hand.
+
+"Art thou my servant?" he cried, and the Moor spread out his palms in
+alert assent.
+
+"Of a surety, Sidi, but the dispenser of medicines--"
+
+"What have I to do with medicines--I, a strong man with no more than a
+bruised skull? Give me my clothes!"
+
+"But, Sidi--"
+
+"My clothes, or return instantly to the gutter from which my favor
+yesterday lifted you!"
+
+The Moor gave a fatalistic shrug.
+
+"If Allah has written it that you are to die by the weapon of thine own
+obstinacy, oh, Sidi, He has written it. This is thy shirt."
+
+With an accustomedness which spoke of previous practice, he presided
+over his master's toilet. He fetched water, honed a razor, shaved Aylmer
+with deftness and despatch, produced trousers from a press, handed coat
+and waistcoat brushed and folded to the last pinnacle of neatness. It
+was as he laced the boots that he looked up inquiringly and put a
+question which had been obviously hanging upon his lips since the moment
+of his master's rising.
+
+"And what, oh, Sidi, are your intentions now?"
+
+"First, to see my host. Afterwards," he made a vague gesture,
+"afterwards, my friend, I shall act as is directed by your perpetual
+gossip--Fate!"
+
+"May Allah direct our councils!" aspired Daoud, piously. "Lean upon me,
+Sidi! There is no need to overtax thy returning strength!"
+
+But Aylmer leaned upon nothing. Slowly, but walking erect, he paced
+across the wide entrance hall, and then halted, indeterminate.
+
+The hangings across a door opposite him were drawn aside. Claire Van
+Arlen stood confronting him, her lips parted in amazement.
+
+"You!" she protested breathlessly. "You!"
+
+He answered with a little bow.
+
+"Myself," he said quietly. "I must present my excuses for an ...
+intrusion which it was not within my power to prevent."
+
+She held up her hand in protest.
+
+"When you were wounded in our service!" she cried. "When you were doing
+your best for us!"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"No," he said. "I am working, I shall go on working, for myself. I
+should like that to be clear."
+
+She half turned away with a little startled motion and the ghost of a
+frown. Words trembled on her lips and were thrust back. She understood,
+and would have sought, at any other time, this opportunity to make
+things clear indeed, but ... the man was wounded ... serving her and
+hers. No, for the moment the opportunity must go by.
+
+She held up the cord hangings and pointed into the room behind her.
+
+"At any rate you must not stand, and I am extremely culpable to permit
+your mutiny against your doctor's orders. Why have you got up?"
+
+He strode slowly after her into the shadowed room. He sat down upon the
+wicker chair which she indicated. His eyes sought hers, keenly and very
+directly.
+
+"You have no news?" he asked. "Nothing out of Spain, or from the coast?"
+
+Her eyes clouded.
+
+"None, or next to none. The signal station at Spartel saw a lateen
+working her sweeps in the distance at dawn. There was a glassy calm
+inshore, but occasional and uncertain breezes out of the shelter of the
+land. She was making as if for Cadiz, but half an hour later, just as
+the haze covered her, a strong wind rose from the northwest and it is
+doubtful if she could have beaten up against it. In which case she
+probably stood down the coast."
+
+Her voice was apathetic and a little weary. Her glance avoided his.
+
+He gave a little nod as she finished.
+
+"Yes," he said. "He has taken the first trick--Landon. And I have been
+no help to you but a hindrance. It was I who helped him last night--I,
+with my impulsiveness. There you have a right ... to suspect me."
+
+She made a quick, restless movement.
+
+"Suspect you!" she cried. "You!"
+
+"Yes," he said slowly. "That day in the town, and on the pier, at the
+Tent Club meeting, even--was not that in your mind?"
+
+His voice was not reproachful, merely inquiring.
+
+She flushed.
+
+"The first time I suspected every one," she answered. "The second time I
+discovered, suddenly and unexpectedly, your name."
+
+He nodded.
+
+"And now?" he questioned. "And now?"
+
+"Now?" she repeated. "Have you not given me my proofs?"
+
+"Have I?" His voice was eager. "I can reckon that barrier down then? The
+taint of the name is cleared away? I start with no handicap of
+prejudice?"
+
+Again the form of words half bewildered, half exasperated her. Start?
+Start whither, in what race, to what goal? And were there barriers to be
+won, too? Between him and--what?
+
+Her instinct gave her the answer as it had done the day before. But she
+shrank from the acknowledgment, even to herself. The thought was too
+monstrous. An Aylmer and--and that! The blood rushed to her forehead on
+the tide of her resentment. And then as suddenly ebbed. After all, was
+it not the name alone which sent that surging throb of repulsion through
+her veins? Supposing she had met this man, in ignorance. She started
+again. Had she not so met him, at first? She cudgelled her brains in
+reflection. How did she regard him that morning at the Tent Club, before
+she knew? Had he not seemed a personable, even a gallant and courageous
+soldier, worthy of a woman's regard? She looked at him suddenly,
+curiously, with a sort of speculation in her eyes.
+
+And he met the glance quietly, watchfully, and--so she told herself with
+a recurrent thrill of exasperation--relentlessly as well. It was as if
+he was forcing her to be won from prejudice to impartiality. As if he
+willed her into just thinking against herself. A tiny spasm of fear
+pulsed through her. In a clash of purpose who would win, she or this
+man?
+
+She made him a gesture which had about it the sense of appeal.
+
+"One cannot dismiss prejudices; one can fight them," she faltered.
+
+"Ah!"
+
+He sighed, not with weariness, but with a sort of patience, with
+restraint. "I think perhaps women do not accept mere justice as a plea
+so easily as men," he debated. "So I must not presume on that footing. I
+have still to win my way from ... dislike?"
+
+"No!" she cried sharply. "No! I can be just to what you have done. What
+you are--that I have yet to learn, have I not?"
+
+He smiled a little bitterly.
+
+"I am an Aylmer. That is the lesson you have got by heart. I ask you to
+begin by unlearning."
+
+She caught her breath a little quickly. Then she gave a decided little
+nod.
+
+"Very well," she answered. "I--I will forget everything but the fact
+that you saved the boy once and that you--"
+
+"Will do it again," said Aylmer. "That is a bargain?"
+
+Again she hesitated over the form of words. A bargain? What was her side
+of the contract. If he fulfilled the purpose of which he spoke so
+confidently, what did it mean, from her point of view? She avoided the
+issue.
+
+"You will find the child, you will bring him back?" she wondered.
+
+"Of course!" He sat very erect in his chair. He smiled confidently. "In
+a fight between a rogue and honest men, the honest men win ultimately,
+and always. The green bay tree of the unrighteous grows with luxuriance
+but withers in time inevitably. I shall follow him till I win."
+
+"And your career?" she asked incredulously. "Your profession?"
+
+He smiled.
+
+"That will be my career--to defeat Landon. Is it a reputable one for a
+gentleman?"
+
+She made a motion of protest.
+
+"But--but that is self-sacrifice, one which we couldn't accept. Why
+should you do this for us?"
+
+He shook his head again.
+
+"No," he said. "I must repeat it, I work for myself. I seek my own
+interest, and that, in the first place, is to make you just. I see but
+the one way to do it. I have to convince you that I am in earnest, have
+I not?"
+
+Again that baffling allusion. In earnest in what? In defeating Landon,
+in attempting the rescue of the child? Surely he had proved that
+already. And yet how could she counter a point which she could not help
+allowing she now understood; how could she do it without the loss of
+dignity implied in an explanation? But it was grotesque. He had known
+her a bare week. He had met her on four occasions.
+
+She looked up, met his eyes, and dropped her own. A tiny sense of panic
+overtook her. He sat there, indomitable. Suppose--suppose he ultimately
+made his purpose good. She made herself look at him again. He had, at
+any rate, good looks to recommend him. And courage and the respect of
+his fellows. But--again a wave of exasperation flowed over her mind. Oh,
+it was outrageous, unthinkable. An Aylmer--another Aylmer. Unconsciously
+her lips curved in a half sarcastic smile. Why, the very newspapers of
+the world would pile headline upon headline over such a fiasco. She
+stiffened with resentment, with a sense of being played with. Her voice
+was chill with a note of dignity outraged.
+
+"I think the fact of your proposing to devote time and strength to the
+pursuit of--of your cousin is a very convincing one, Captain Aylmer,"
+she answered. "The point is that we have no right to accept so much from
+you."
+
+He smiled joyously.
+
+"I shall always want to be giving, to you. Always, always. Please
+understand that. My service is to you, and so to myself. Try to think of
+me in that light, patiently."
+
+And then a sort of desperation seized her. She probed her mind for a
+form of words which should give him no further loophole to persist in
+his veiled menaces, for she could call them no less, one that should
+seize a meaning out of his allusions and crush it with a directness
+which could not be misunderstood. Her eyes grew hard; she rose to her
+feet.
+
+A step sounded in the hall, and the hangings were pushed aside. Her
+father stood before them.
+
+He looked at Aylmer with amazed reproach. His face, already haggard with
+anxiety, took on new lines of concern.
+
+"My dear sir!" he protested. "My dear sir!"
+
+And Aylmer could not resist a smile. It was the form of protest which he
+had used at their former meeting to veil--what? Antipathy? And now? The
+words were full of genuine concern. He read no longer dislike in Mr. Van
+Arlen's glance. The elder man's eyes had softened as they reached his.
+
+He warded off further reproaches with a question.
+
+"The news?" he cried eagerly. "The news is what?"
+
+"Good, in so far that we can gauge the direction of their flight. They
+have been seen passing Arzeila; the morning's gale has prevented their
+attempt to reach any port of Spain."
+
+"And so--?"
+
+"And so we start in pursuit with my yacht, within the hour."
+
+Aylmer stood up.
+
+"We?" he repeated. "We being--?"
+
+Van Arlen looked mildly astonished.
+
+"My daughter and I."
+
+Aylmer held out his hand with a pleading gesture.
+
+"You can't afford to despise my help," he said. "You must take me, too."
+
+Van Arlen looked at Aylmer and then, questioningly, towards his
+daughter. She met his glance. Here at last was the opportunity to make
+things plain with a vengeance. They had but politely to decline.
+
+Aylmer's voice forestalled her.
+
+"To be impartial, that was your promise," he said. "We had not got far,
+but at least as far as that."
+
+In spite of herself she turned and faced him. He met her glance
+steadily, confidently, expectant.
+
+She gave a queer, half-exasperated little laugh.
+
+"I think Captain Aylmer is a man who is easily refused nothing," she
+said, and passed quietly out of the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+BY FAVOR OF THE FOG
+
+
+"I do not like this!" piped a small and dejected voice. "I came to ride
+a black horse, not to be bumped in this vessel forgotten of God!"
+
+In English these words would have sounded strangely from the lips of a
+child of six, but little John Aylmer was fluent in the Arab jargon of
+his grandfather's native household.
+
+He was sitting disconsolate in the cockpit of the lateen _Esmeralda_.
+His company was Senor Emilio Albaceda, mariner and practical exponent of
+the tenets of an uncompromising Free Trade. From the uncovered hatch
+came the sound of wind whistling in the cordage and the swish and thud
+of the combers breaking past. Upon one of the narrow bunks which flanked
+the tiny cabin lay Landon, fast asleep. A guttering and extremely
+odoriferous lamp of vegetable oil was the sole illuminant. The prospects
+of comfort and entertainment in such surroundings were not those likely
+to appeal to a child accustomed to luxury and constant attention.
+
+"_Pazienza!_" grunted the skipper, good-humoredly. "Black horses are not
+found upon the sea, though a friend of mine who prefers the running of
+contraband to the priesthood for which his parents destined him, read me
+once verses from a journal--true poetry in praise of a boot polish the
+name of which does not stay by me--where the waves of the Atlantic were
+likened unto stallions white-maned. I confess I thought the notion
+original."
+
+The child stared at him meditatively.
+
+"If horses are not to be found upon the sea and we seek horses, why do
+not we forsake the sea for the land?" There was a note of anticipation
+in the query which seemed to find this argument conclusive.
+
+The smuggler grinned.
+
+"Excellently argued, son of much intelligence," he answered. "Land is
+what we shall seek when this gale breathed from Jehannum permits us to
+do so in safety. For the moment we drive before it, there being no
+harbors on this coast within a thousand miles."
+
+The child moved restlessly.
+
+"Where then can we land?" he demanded.
+
+"Where God and His Mother and the Holy Saints permit," said Senor
+Albaceda, suddenly reverting to _lingua franca_ to clothe a piety of
+sentiment which the Moslem religion ignores. The One Allah's plans,
+being laid from the foundation of the world, are not susceptible to the
+influences of human appeal.
+
+Little John made a grimace of hearty discontent and looked doubtfully at
+the sleeping form of his father. But for the moment distraction came
+from another quarter.
+
+Two brown legs appeared in the opening of the hatch. As their owner
+lowered himself into the cabin, he disclosed the features of the man of
+the brown _djelab_--he who on Tangier pier had been sponsor for those
+fiery but phantom steeds which Fate had not allowed to materialize. The
+child received him with a shrill little shout of welcome.
+
+"Muhammed!" he cried gladly. "Muhammed!"
+
+The Moor placed his lean finger upon the yellow curls in a light caress,
+but his look was towards the berth where Landon could be seen stirring,
+aroused by his son's acclamation.
+
+He slipped into a sitting posture in front of the tiny table and leaned
+upon it, his chin supported by his elbows, a look of expectancy tinged
+by humor in his eye.
+
+"Well, my friends," he queried amiably, "our news is, what?"
+
+The Moor gave a pessimistic shrug of the shoulder.
+
+"Bad, Sidi," he said tersely. "We continue to drive westwards as
+before."
+
+Landon shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"We shall not see Cadiz to-morrow nor the day after," he said. "Well,
+the future is spacious. We have infinite leisure before us in which to
+beat back."
+
+The captain grunted.
+
+"Leisure we have in abundance, but not food nor yet water. We must put
+in somewhere before we attempt a feat which will take, at the best,
+three days and, if Chance so decides, perhaps a fortnight."
+
+Landon's face was clouded with a sudden scowl.
+
+"Food and water! Why have you not these in sufficiency? Your terms are
+extortionate enough as it is without the makeweight of starvation!"
+
+"My terms," said Senor Albaceda, gruffly, "were all too cheap; what I
+learned in Tangier after I had come to an agreement with you was proof
+to me of that. But I am a man of honor; I keep bargains duly made. I
+contracted to set you ashore in Cadiz harbor--with a favorable wind a
+one night's work. I did not contract to feed three extra mouths through
+a voyage of weeks. When the wind moderates, I make for the nearest
+market, and you will buy your own provisions for our return. That is
+well understood."
+
+"You mean to land on the African coast, not the European?" cried Landon.
+
+"Where else?" said the skipper, drily. "Do you expect me to carry you on
+to the Azores?"
+
+Landon looked questioningly at Muhammed. The Moor made a gesture of
+resignation.
+
+"_Mektub_, it is written!" he answered fatalistically. "Azemmour,
+perchance, or Mazagan."
+
+"And opposite each we shall find a French cruiser anchored," growled
+Landon, "with launches fussing about, and every craft which enters under
+suspicion of smuggling guns for the Chawia. And ten to one warning about
+us from Tangier sent down the coast."
+
+"That would be a matter of time," said the Moor. "We have driven faster
+than horsemen could ride!"
+
+"Horsemen!" Landon smote the table in his irritation. "These ships of
+war have apparatus by which they can communicate as if a cable linked
+them. If my father-in-law gets the right side of the commandant of the
+Tangier guardship--" He broke off with another shrug. "Well, to each day
+its appointed sorrow. The gale has not blown itself out yet."
+
+"The event is with Allah!" said the Moor, gravely. He thrust his head up
+through the hatch and shouted to the steersman. A moment later he
+dropped back into the shelter of the cabin again.
+
+"Your man Ibrahim is of opinion that the wind shows signs of abating. We
+passed Larache two hours back. The scud hides the shore, but he judges
+that we are not far from Sallee. If the surf permits, we may get
+anchorage and make a landing at Azemmour. If not, we must dare
+Casablanca or continue to Mazagan."
+
+Senor Albaceda grunted pessimistically and climbed lumberingly on deck.
+Landon threw himself back on the berth again. The Moor looked down at
+the child with a whimsical expression of pity which changed to a
+benignant smile as the object of it raised his eyes to his.
+
+"The Sidi Jan has not heard the marvellous tale of the Bashaw of Tripoli
+and the Afreets of El Mut?" he submitted. "If it is the Sidi's will, his
+servant will now take the opportunity of relating it to him?"
+
+Little John Aylmer answered with an ecstatic chuckle of delight, and
+wriggled hurriedly into the encirclement of his friend's arm. Thus
+supported, he was able to defy the unsettling influence of the waves and
+give the whole of his attention to the taxing of the Moor's memory or,
+when this occasionally failed, his very competent imagination. The hours
+of the afternoon were passed agreeably; the difficulties of making a
+meal without the ordinary appliances of civilization provided a certain
+amount of diversion when night fell, and afterwards sleep was paramount.
+When the child woke he found the boat running slowly upon an even keel,
+and scrambling on deck was met by the view of a glassy swell surrounding
+her, but only visible to the extent of the few square yards which were
+enclosed in a veil of fog.
+
+The skipper was at the wheel, and Ibrahim, the deck hand, and Muhammed
+were seated side by side in the bows. They did not peer into the fog--a
+hopeless task. They sat in a listening attitude, exchanging a brief word
+now and again.
+
+"It is certainly the drumming of a ship's screw," decided the sailor,
+after a moment's silence. "It is going at half speed, behind us."
+
+"Let us hope that Allah has not predestined us to be cut in twain," said
+his companion. "But from port, and very regularly, I hear the beat of
+breakers. The swell is rolling against a cliff."
+
+"A shore, not a cliff," corrected the other. "If my dead reckoning is
+right within a score of miles, we are opposite a beach of sand."
+
+Muhammed shook his head.
+
+"Nay, listen to that thud. The crest of the comber meets something flat.
+It does not roll, in slowly dying foam, upon a strand."
+
+Ibrahim shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"In a fog we be all blind men," he said pessimistically. "Let us wait
+for the fulfilment of Allah's plan."
+
+They glanced questioningly upwards. As is common in these west coast
+fogs, the blanket of vapor was thin. Now and again a faint hint of blue
+above their heads seemed to presage a lifting of the mist; occasionally,
+indeed, the sun was to be seen vaguely as a round yellow ball of light,
+streaked by the slowly drifting scud. But the gray walls on each side of
+them remained unbroken. At the same time the beat of the breakers was
+perceptibly near.
+
+Senor Albaceda lifted his head from the hatch and invited the
+maledictions of innumerable Holy Men upon the weather. He was understood
+to confess that he did not undertake to gauge their position within a
+hundred miles.
+
+"If Allah's mercy would send us an offshore wind!" aspired the pious
+Ibrahim, and lo! with the word came its sudden fulfilment. The fog was
+rent by a gust, to disclose, not a couple of cable lengths distant, what
+appeared to be a smooth and painted crag of gray.
+
+The two Moors addressed fervent appeals to the One God. The Spaniard,
+impartially apostrophizing the tormented of Purgatory and the
+celestially blessed to hasten to his assistance, delivered himself of
+the opinion that Fate had closed her iron hand upon them. Where else
+could they be than within a mile of the sea bastions of Casablanca?
+
+That, did they observe, was a cruiser--nay, possibly a battleship by
+whose watch they had been observed without a shadow of a doubt. As the
+fog closed in again, he descended to the cabin where he could be heard
+loudly bewailing the situation to his passenger, whom he appeared to
+hold responsible for this and for a fairly extensive list of other
+inconveniences. The captain of the lateen _Esmeralda_ had obviously been
+warding off the chill influences of the fog by a liberal dose of
+_aguardiente_.
+
+Landon lifted himself quickly to the deck. The mist was perceptibly
+lighter by now. A beam of sunlight pierced it from above and lit the
+_Esmeralda's_ deck. The gray wall was still unbroken landward, but
+seaward it thinned, lifted, rolled this way and that, and finally
+disclosed a shining plain of blue. The central object in this, a couple
+of miles away, was a white, gleaming yacht.
+
+Landon swore.
+
+"_The Morning Star_--Van Arlen's boat, by God!" he cried. He made the
+helmsman a furious gesture. "Into the fog again!" he shouted. "Stick her
+nose into it, get out of this!"
+
+"To beat out her timbers upon the harbor reef, or be swamped beneath the
+bows of a warship!" screamed the skipper from the hatch. "Never! Keep
+her in the light, son of accursed mothers! Do passengers who have been
+born of leprous parents give orders aboard this vessel, or I, Concepcion
+Albaceda, to whom the law rightly adjudges powers of life and death?"
+
+He came lurching heavily aft, waving a case bottle by the neck to give
+emphasis to his commands. The bewildered Ibrahim stared at him owlishly.
+
+The next moment he gave a cry of alarm. Landon had tripped the captain's
+unsteady feet, and, aided by Muhammed, had taken him forward and flung
+him into the cockpit. They closed the hatch, secured it, and came aft
+again. Imperiously Landon repeated his order.
+
+The unfortunate sailor still hesitated. His compatriot took him firmly
+by the nape of the neck.
+
+"Into the fog, child of indescribable unfaithfulness," he commanded, "or
+become immediately bait for sharks! Choose!"
+
+The bewildered Ibrahim brought round the tiller with a jerk. Like a
+rabbit seeking its burrow, the lateen dived fogwards.
+
+As the gray wall surged up to them again, they turned and stared
+seaward. Landon cursed loudly. The yacht was turning, too, straight
+towards them. At a word from his master, Muhammed got out the great
+sweeps and invited Ibrahim imperiously to join him in working them.
+Landon took the helm.
+
+Two minutes later there was a crashing sound forward and the bowsprit
+splintered with a shock which made the little vessel shiver throughout
+its length. A muffled wail of wrath and despair followed from the depths
+of the cockpit.
+
+The wall of gray was towering above them. Over the bulwarks of the R.
+F. Cruiser _Diomede_ a lieutenant looked down and anathematized them
+with a versatility only acquired by a true son of the sea. Landon bowed,
+smiled, and in perfect French, asked the liberty of being permitted to
+come aboard.
+
+The lieutenant, surprised beyond measure to hear the accents of the
+Faubourg from the decks of such an unpromising craft, hastened to forget
+the collision between the _Esmeralda's_ bowsprit and the _Diomede's_
+paint, and directed his petitioner to find the companion ladder. A
+minute's groping in the fog, and Landon stood upon the cruiser's deck.
+
+He bowed elaborately. The lieutenant returned the bow and motioned him
+towards the quarter-deck. The captain came forward to receive him,
+smiling amiably.
+
+"I must be perfectly frank with you, Monsieur le Commandant," said
+Landon, returning the smile. "I come to beg assistance. My yacht is in
+harbor here, as you are possibly aware. No? The fog has hidden us; we
+came in last night. With my little son, I went ashore early this morning
+to leave a card on General d'Amade, to whom I have an introduction. I
+missed my own boat at the landing-place and was foolish enough to be
+persuaded to embark with these imbeciles below, of whom one is drunk and
+the other witless. I have already had an hour of monotonous adventure in
+the gloom; I am a little tired of being very reasonably cursed by master
+mariners whose vessels we have been ambitious enough to ram. It struck
+me that perchance you would be sending a boat ashore within the course
+of an hour or so, and might permit me to wait on deck and be a passenger
+in it. If so, my gratitude would be beyond words. It is not only for
+myself. My little son is delicate; I do not wish to expose him longer
+than is necessary to the chill of these vile vapors."
+
+Commandant Rattier smiled again, expressed his pleasure in being able to
+offer assistance to any Englishman--he himself was united to that nation
+by ties of blood. He would order away his launch immediately. In the
+meantime _une limonade Ecossaise_ would combat the effect of chill and
+mist. Monsieur would descend to the cabin, would accept some small
+refreshment?
+
+Monsieur overflowed with thanks. He would dismiss the villains who had
+led him into such a coil, and then hold himself at M. le Commandant's
+service.
+
+He leaned over and gave his orders. Muhammed turned to Ibrahim.
+
+"Remove yourself and your master, oh, son of dirt, from these
+surroundings with the utmost speed, or I have the promise of the captain
+of this warship that he will send you in chains ashore to answer for
+your crime in wilfully colliding with his vessel. Your bowsprit? What
+have I to do with the results of your own vile seamanship? Have haste or
+Allah alone knows what will betide from the mouth of one of these guns."
+
+He gathered the child up into his arms and stalked with dignity up the
+companion.
+
+Ten minutes later a launch fussed away from the side of the _Diomede_.
+The commandant waved his handkerchief gaily in farewell to his small
+guest, who, from the encirclement of his father's arm, waved as gaily
+back. Half a hundred _matelots_ grinned affably at him as they paused in
+their toil at cabin lights and brass-work. Landon saluted punctiliously
+and Muhammed's brown eyes expressed a grave approval of his
+entertainment. The launch's prow was thrust into the gloom.
+
+Another gust sang lazily from the shore and the desert and shivered the
+fog. The patches of blue joined, grew wider, opened a triumphal arch for
+the descending sunbeams' entrance. A little more than a mile away the
+walls of the sea bastions shone white. The launch's speed increased.
+
+Before they reached the quayside the last wisp of vapor had disappeared.
+Land and sea were swathed in sun. Landon gave a little cackle of
+amusement and pointed behind him.
+
+"My yacht!" he cried gaily. "My over-anxious master has weighed anchor
+in pursuit of me. Word must have reached him of my having allowed myself
+to be persuaded into that vile lateen."
+
+The sub-lieutenant in charge swerved the tiller.
+
+"Let me take you straight to her," he said. "Let me signal her!"
+
+Landon appeared to consider.
+
+"Thanks, a thousand times," he said, "but a small matter of victualling
+which I promised my steward to deal with has just recurred to my mind. I
+will see to it and then signal for my own boat. After all, too, I might
+see a little of the town, now we have the sunshine to illuminate it. A
+couple of hours ago it was London in November, with a few additional
+smells!"
+
+The lieutenant laughed and turned the prow towards the shore again. He
+cast another look over his shoulder.
+
+"Is it possible that your master has information of, or suspects, that
+very lateen? It appears to me that he is chasing it!"
+
+Landon faced seaward and observed the yacht keenly.
+
+He laughed with great enjoyment.
+
+"He is a character, that skipper of mine," he said. "He is as likely as
+not to sink the unfortunate boat if he does not find me on board or get
+a reasonable account of me. I shall have to smooth matters down with a
+dollar or two."
+
+A minute later the launch slowed up against the little quay. The three
+passengers stepped ashore, Landon full of compliments and thanks. Still
+waving adieu, he, Muhammed, and the child paced contentedly off into the
+town. The lieutenant turned seaward again.
+
+A slightly bewildered frown clouded his face as he approached the
+_Diomede_. The yacht had anchored with the lateen alongside her, and a
+boat was pulling from her towards the warship. The lieutenant considered
+that for yachtsmen he had never seen a boat's crew pull faster.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+RATTIER LOSES HIS CALM
+
+
+Major D'Hubert, Provost Marshal of the French forces occupying
+Casablanca, grinned widely.
+
+"So you suffered him to escape?" he said.
+
+Commandant Rattier drummed fiercely on the office table.
+
+"Suffered?" he roared. "I entertained him--the _escroc_! I nourished
+him; I sent him ashore!"
+
+The soldier smiled and looked at Rattier's companion--Aylmer.
+
+"What open-hearted ingenuousness!" he chuckled. "You and I now, my
+Captain! When one has been officer of the day a few thousand times, or
+sat upon a few hundred courts-martial, or acted as _maitre de logis_,
+one learns to sift a story then. And this one had its weak points, even
+for a sailor. Would any one not mentally deranged hire a lateen to take
+him aboard his own yacht? No, I should have required something better
+imagined than that--I."
+
+Aylmer shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"The man can make himself of an engaging personality, Major. Our friend
+acted according to the impulses of his generous soul. But the point is
+that our man is hidden in the town. We come to you for expert knowledge.
+Who would be likely to shelter him, and where? You will pardon our
+insistence and intrusion, but our need is very pressing. It is the
+child who is our concern, the child."
+
+D'Hubert made a gesture of assent.
+
+"Apart from my sincere affection for our simpleminded commandant,
+Monsieur, your tale is good enough for any honest man and a father of
+babes like myself. But this town of Casablanca is, in effect, a
+haystack. Your quarry has the best of chances to act the needle."
+
+He opened a door into an outer office and shouted a name.
+
+"Sergeant Perinaud!"
+
+A body filled the doorway and entered, bending the last few inches of
+its stature. The sergeant saluted and unfolded himself, his eyes
+reviewing the company with affable respect about two metres above the
+floor.
+
+"Visit the guardroom at each gate, see the lieutenants of the Spanish
+police and bring me back a list of parties which have left the town
+since morning. This is a matter of haste."
+
+The sergeant saluted again and then hesitated.
+
+"Is it permitted first to speak?" he asked.
+
+The major nodded jerkily.
+
+"It is, by chance, the movements of two men and a woman which are in
+question?" speculated Perinaud.
+
+Major d'Hubert opened his lips, shut them tight, meditated a moment, and
+then spoke. He turned and looked at his visitors.
+
+"The child? Is it of a stature to be disguised as a woman?" he asked.
+
+The sergeant interrupted with an apologetic gesture.
+
+"The figure of the woman I suggest was not seen by me. She travelled in
+an _arba_. My attention was drawn to the party thus. Two hours ago a
+band of the Beni M'Geel, Berbers, left by the eastern gate as for Ber
+Rechid. They had with them two Arabs and a woman under the canopy of
+which I spoke. Arab and Berber, especially if the latter are of the Beni
+M'Geel, do not usually travel together."
+
+"You observed the men?"
+
+"Not narrowly, my Major. One was of a smiling countenance, hook-nosed,
+and clad in a _djelab_ of brown. He walked beside the _arba_ and his
+talk, as I judged it, was to the woman, who, however, made no reply. The
+other had the hood of his _haik_ pulled far over his face. I did not see
+it."
+
+The major sat down at his desk, wrote a few lines swiftly, dashed sand
+upon the ink, and handed the completed note to his underling.
+
+"Let that be taken to General d'Amade without delay. Search may at the
+same time be made in the town for an Englishman, his child, and a Moor
+attendant who landed from a launch of the _Diomede_ some three hours
+back. The messenger may await the general's answer and bring it to me
+here."
+
+As the giant saluted for the third time and diminished himself into the
+doorway, Major d'Hubert confronted his friends with a pessimistic shake
+of the head.
+
+"My instinct is that Perinaud has already put his finger on the mystery.
+Your milord must be a man of resource. To have engaged the services of
+some of these wolves of Beni M'Geel within an hour of landing in a
+strange town shows more than talent. It amounts to genius."
+
+"This servant of his, Muhammed, is no stranger to the port," said
+Aylmer. "We learned that before we left Tangier. He is a well-known gun
+runner, and stands high in his profession. He has made these
+arrangements."
+
+Commandant Rattier flung aside his taciturnity with a suddenly impulsive
+oath.
+
+"Name of all little names!" he cried. "Do we sit and discuss this matter
+as if it were a comedietta in which we take no more than the languid
+interest of the dilettante! Are they not to be pursued--this past master
+of perjury and his lieutenant? Are we to mount the town walls and wave
+them affectionate farewells?"
+
+D'Hubert arched his brows with protest.
+
+"Pursuit? Certainly there is a question of pursuit, if it is allowed. I
+have just sent a _precis_ of your story to the commander-in-chief with a
+request for his leave to send a patrol. In a very few minutes we shall
+learn whether or no we have his permission."
+
+"Permission!" Rattier roared the word in the major's face. "I, Paul
+Rattier, do you see, have been made the laughing-stock of the fleet and,
+in time, no doubt, of half Europe! Am I to wait your general's
+permission to chase this scoundrel to Timbuctoo, if I so wish? I am the
+senior officer of marine here. I give myself leave, understand me--I!"
+
+"And these amiable Berbers?" asked the major, sarcastically. "Supposing
+they turn upon you and demand your reasons, and estimate your powers?
+Suppose, to be blunt, my friend, they put a bullet through your brains?"
+
+"Would that be any worse than wearing this hat of ridicule which this
+Baron de Landon has put upon my head? No Moor or Touareg or Berber shall
+stand between me and the object of my just retaliation, if I confront
+him!"
+
+A small bell tinkled in a corner. D'Hubert made a gesture of apology as
+he went towards a cabinet screened from the general office. He came back
+grinning.
+
+"My Paul," he chuckled, "there will be shortly an insuperable barrier
+between you and your desire. In another hour you will not be the senior
+officer of marine at Casablanca. I learn by wireless that the
+_Barfleur_, with the admiral on board, enters the roads within the
+hour."
+
+Rattier stood for an instant motionless. Then he turned and darted for
+the door.
+
+Before his fingers reached the handle Aylmer's grip was on his shoulder.
+With a passionate gesture of repulse the commandant shook him off.
+
+"I am not one to await admirals!" he roared. "I go to make arrangements.
+Within half an hour I leave the town--I. If I have to walk I will follow
+these Berber scoundrels, yes, if I have to crawl upon my knees!"
+
+As the two wrestled and argued on the threshold, the door opened from
+the outside. The massive proportions of the sergeant towered over them
+in respectful amazement. He saluted and deferentially edged a way for
+himself towards D'Hubert.
+
+"The general was in the act of passing, my Major," he explained. "He
+read your note and wrote his answer on the back in five words--he was
+amiable enough to inform me."
+
+The major untwisted the little roll of soiled paper and as he inspected
+it a smile creased his cheek. He chuckled.
+
+"A half troop of Goumiers!" he read. He looked at the frowning face of
+the commandant.
+
+"No need to go alone, my Paul. There is your escort." He hesitated a
+moment, debating. "Do either of you, by chance, speak Arabic?"
+
+"Am I an interpreter?" asked Rattier, bitterly. "Does one need a grammar
+and dictionary to arrest half a dozen scoundrels who are perfectly well
+aware why they are being chased, and whom one will take the liberty of
+shooting if they resist capture? For that plain English or French--or,
+for all practical purposes, Chinese--will suffice. Avoid alarming
+yourself on that subject, _mon ami_."
+
+The major grinned.
+
+"I was not thinking of your quarry but your colleagues, my pigeon. The
+Goumiers speak their own _argot_. They are good-hearted children, but
+apt to be tempestuous in matters of fighting." He meditated through
+another minute before he spoke with quick decision. "Sergeant! Prepare
+to accompany M. le Commandant within fifteen minutes."
+
+Perinaud saluted with entire imperturbability.
+
+"And my instructions, my Major?" he asked.
+
+"To return with the prisoners which Commandant Rattier will indicate to
+you, or, failing their capture, within twenty-four hours."
+
+"_Bien!_" Perinaud folded himself anaconda-like into the back office and
+disappeared. Ten minutes later, a period which D'Hubert filled with much
+voluble advice, there was the tramping of many horses' feet without.
+Aylmer and Rattier strolled out into the open at the major's heels.
+
+Under the command of one of their own native officers, forty horsemen of
+the famous Algerian yeomanry had reined up in the dusty street. They sat
+in their high peaked saddles, watching keenly the faces of D'Hubert and
+his companions. Aylmer noted the eager, alert expectation which filled
+each flashing brown eye. The Goumier, though he has proved his valor in
+more than one pitched battle against the men of his own blood, is not a
+man of war as we understand it. Manoeuvring, tactics, the orderliness
+of drill and discipline are not inherent in his nature. But the raid,
+the foray, the looting expedition are to him the apex and apogee of
+human bliss. Thin, modest of stomach and worldly possessions, he passes
+over the quickly reached horizon of the desert and is forgotten of the
+well-drilled colleagues he leaves behind. But see his return! Swelling
+with good victuals, jingling with caparison of desert wealth, with
+chicken and kid pendent from his saddle-bow, who more popular than he?
+The savory incense of his mess attracts all nostrils; his lavishly
+scattered loot widens the already capacious circle of his friends.
+Winning it, or wasting it when won, loot is the pivot on which his
+reckless, joyous, heedless existence swings.
+
+Rising from the rear as a cathedral tower rises above the encircling
+dwellings at its base, Perinaud's head and shoulders topped the ranks.
+His amiable smile, this time, had about it something of more than
+ordinary deference. It was the near kin of a smirk, and his yellow
+moustache was twisted fiercely upwards. Aylmer followed the direction of
+his glance to find it focussed upon Claire Van Arlen.
+
+Her eyes met his. She made him a little gesture, half of appeal, as it
+seemed, half of command.
+
+As he covered the few yards which separated them, he noted, with a queer
+tightening of the heart, the deep shadows which had grown beneath her
+eyes. But at the same time it was not all anxiety or weariness which
+her face expressed. There was determination also. And this was reflected
+in Mr. Van Arlen's glance. It dwelled upon Aylmer with expectancy and
+more than expectancy,--with hope.
+
+Without preamble he answered the question which their eyes had asked.
+They heard him in silence to the end, and as he finished, the girl's
+first comment was no more than a little sigh.
+
+"The sergeant's surmise is right; my instinct tells me that," said
+Aylmer. "A few hours--and I shall be putting the child in your arms
+again."
+
+She looked up at the double rank of horsemen. A sudden vivid flash of
+feeling passed over her features. Her breath came with a little pant.
+
+"Ah, if I could ride with you!" she said fiercely. "If I could do more
+than wait!"
+
+The color mounted to her cheeks, to her brow. A new note sounded in her
+voice.
+
+"If they show fight--these men? If, rather than lose the child, he"--her
+voice sank unsteadily for a moment--"does him an injury? You would not
+spare him?"
+
+He smiled a little wearily.
+
+"So you distrust me still?" he asked. "Why should I spare him? Because,
+to my shame, we are of one blood?"
+
+Mr. Van Arlen's thin hand rose in deprecation.
+
+"We can leave this matter confidently in Captain Aylmer's hands," he
+said. "We have only the one thing to think of--the child."
+
+"No!" she cried vehemently. "I want the child, but I want more than
+that. I want retribution. I want Landon in the dust. I want him made to
+feel, as I feel. The child is much, but he is not all. Have you
+forgotten the last eight years of my sister's life? Do you remember what
+she has undergone and still has to undergo if the father of her son wins
+this trick, as my heart tells me he will win it? I want vengeance. I
+want every chance to grasp it seized. I should not hesitate, where his
+kinsman might."
+
+Aylmer nodded gravely.
+
+"I understand," he said quietly. "Perhaps it is natural. But you keep
+forgetting the one thing--that I work for my own reward. Even pity would
+be a frail barrier between me and that."
+
+Watching her keenly, he saw a quiver of repulsion tremble about her
+lips, but it did not stay. She set them rather into grimness. She looked
+at him keenly, debatingly, indeed, as if she weighed his words and
+sought to set a value on them.
+
+"Yes," she said, and there was a breathlessness in her tone as if she
+slurred words which she did not dare to let herself hear. "I, too,
+understand. And my father would consider no price too high for the
+service which won back his grandchild, and removed the menace of
+Landon's existence from our lives."
+
+Van Arlen bowed unconsciously--his courteous, instinctive inclination of
+assent.
+
+"Such a service would be beyond price or reward," he said quietly. "We
+could only do our best."
+
+But there was a queerly puzzled look in his eyes as they wandered from
+Aylmer to his daughter's face. He frowned a little, still unconsciously,
+in the throes of an obvious bewilderment.
+
+Aylmer looked at him once, swiftly, speculatively, and then turned
+steadily towards Claire.
+
+"And you?" he asked quietly.
+
+She did not flinch; she did not even show, this time, any sign of
+repulsion. The note in her voice now was exasperation, the nervous
+defiance of one confronting an intolerable situation from which there
+was no escape.
+
+"I? I should think as my father thinks," she said coolly. She turned as
+she spoke and looked impatiently at the line of waiting horsemen.
+
+Aylmer nodded.
+
+"Thank you," he said briskly. He made a sign towards Perinaud, who
+jogged forward leading the spare horse whose bridle he had been holding.
+Aylmer vaulted into the saddle, and reined in beside his friend Rattier,
+who, using the pommel for a desk, was writing a few lines of instruction
+to his lieutenant. A guttural order rumbled from the native officer's
+lips.
+
+The line of horsemen wheeled and deployed into lines of four. With a
+jingle of accoutrements, they jogged off into the dust of the allies
+towards the eastern gate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE AMBUSH OF THE BROOM
+
+
+"The wells of El Djebir, Monsieur," explained Sergeant Perinaud. "It is
+here we should find our men, if they are proceeding by the shortest
+route to their hills. If not--" He shrugged his shoulders significantly.
+
+The horses were roused from their gentle amble into a gallop. The dust
+rose from fourscore hoofs as the Goumiers raced down in an enveloping
+cloud upon the cluster of palms and thicket of broom scrub which
+surrounded the watering-place. They pulled their horses upon their
+haunches; they shouted in hoarse disappointment. The shadowed
+resting-place beneath the palms was empty. Not a living soul was in
+sight.
+
+Perinaud shrugged his shoulders again.
+
+"This is very conclusive, Monsieur. The party we seek has thought fit to
+leave the open road and to bury themselves in the recesses of the jungle
+and the northern gorges of the river. They did not do that without a
+reason. It remains to follow, if we can."
+
+The native officer shouted something and Perinaud turned swiftly in the
+saddle to stare down the track which they had been following. A white
+figure bestriding a brown horse was thundering towards them, the rider's
+_haik_ fluttering out snowily against the dun background of the earth.
+
+"So Monsieur thought fit to leave me--me!" expostulated Daoud, as he
+drew rein at Aylmer's side. "I, I who address you, am told by the chance
+gossip of the Sok that this expedition has set out without a word of
+warning, to seek bandits--where?" He threw abroad his arms in derision.
+"On the broad and open road, within sound, nay, almost within sight, of
+the patrols of Casablanca. I ask, is it here that knaves are likely to
+hide their knavery? Your venture and its object are already the pivot on
+which the laughter of the market-place swings."
+
+He turned and pointed vehemently towards the north.
+
+"Has none of your trained spies had the wit or the courage to tell you
+that a hundred of these Beni M'Geel Berbers have encamped in the
+thickets of the Bou Gherba gorge this ten days back? And yet the
+market-place knows it, as it knows a hundred things beneath your
+concern."
+
+Perinaud looked the Moor up and down. Then he turned leisurely towards
+Aylmer.
+
+"He is a safe man, this?" he asked. "You guarantee him?"
+
+Aylmer smiled, and shrugged his shoulders towards the waiting Goumiers.
+
+"They are all for their own hand, these, are they not, Sergeant? Yes, I
+will guarantee that he seeks to serve me, for the moment, and in serving
+me, himself. It is the way with these desert folk. They cannot manage
+large issues, and they split into factions to follow small ones. Let us
+hear him and, if you see no objection, take his advice. He has been in
+Casablanca before."
+
+Perinaud grunted and eyed the Moor grudgingly.
+
+"Well, man of infinite knowledge," he said in Arabic. "You
+propose--what?"
+
+"Are there two courses before us?" asked Daoud, disdainfully. "Or are we
+to await reinforcements? We have to surround this lair of desert cats."
+
+"Where?" asked Perinaud, laconically.
+
+The Moor wheeled his stallion with an elaborate caracole.
+
+"If the Sidi had used my services from the first," he said, "he would
+have been saved an hour's ride. Forward, Sidi!"
+
+The sergeant lifted his eyebrows at Aylmer with an air of comical
+resignation. To the native officer he gave a decisive little nod. With
+Daoud leading, the brown stallion arching his neck in remonstrance to a
+tightened rein and goading spur, the column broke formation and in
+single file turned northwards into the broom scrub which fringes the
+tilled lands of the Chawia.
+
+The horsemen rode in silence. The mantle of Rattier's taciturnity, rent
+to rags in D'Hubert's office, seemed to have been restored to its
+pristine imperviousness, seemed, indeed, to hang heavy upon the spirits
+of the whole company. Now and again the commandant's lips moved
+uneasily, but the spoken word died still-born. A Goumier would address
+fervent maledictions to the memory of the female ancestors of a
+stumbling horse; curt conferences took place at long intervals between
+Perinaud and the native officer. But apart from this, the thud of hoofs
+meeting sand or earth and the dull rap of rein or stirrup leather were
+all the sounds which broke the stillness. The heavy noontide heat seemed
+to have swallowed into silence all sound. For sound denotes creative
+energy, and energy, when the sun is at its zenith in South Morocco, is
+sapped.
+
+Their course, as Aylmer was quick to notice, led perpetually upward, but
+in gradients which almost eluded notice. Gray blue in the haze of
+distance, the rolling uplands culminated in a range of low hills, but
+these were a full day's march beyond their powers. Their goal, if it
+were to be reached within daylight, must be nearer than that. His
+attention, as the hours went monotonously by, was at last drawn to a gap
+in the far mapped expanse of vegetation.
+
+A line of green, deeper and of more luxuriant growth than the thickets
+around them, divided the jungle from east to west. Daoud, turning in his
+saddle, waved his hand in an important gesture.
+
+"The Gorge of the Bou Djerba, Sidi," he said. "It is my advice that I go
+forward to reconnoitre--alone."
+
+Aylmer looked at Perinaud. The sergeant shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Monsieur guarantees this fellow, I understand? Well, let him justify
+himself. I have no objections."
+
+Rattier interrupted.
+
+"It is well understood that I deal with this M. de Landon if he is
+there, I alone? Your man, now, if he suddenly confronts him--" He broke
+off with a meaning gesture. "I do not wish my interview with him
+anticipated."
+
+In spite of himself, a smile broke the imperturbability of the
+sergeant's face. With a suggestive jerk of the hand he dismissed Daoud,
+who cantered on into and was lost in the jungle of mallow. Perinaud
+turned sympathetic and now perfectly grave features towards the
+commandant.
+
+"Monsieur may be easy in his mind," he said quietly. "The man we seek,
+if I have understood his talents rightly, is hardly likely to be subdued
+without the display of some force and intelligence."
+
+He turned to give the order to dismount. Rattier watched him with an air
+of baffled exasperation. There had been a gentle emphasis on the last
+two words which could scarcely be misunderstood, and as the sailor
+ruminated over them, his taciturnity showed renewed signs of failing
+before the rising tide of his wrath. A sudden diversion averted an
+outbreak.
+
+For a gunshot rang out among the woodland silences into which Daoud had
+disappeared. It was instantly replied to by the shriller snap of a
+revolver. And this was followed by a fusillade of five more reports as
+the weapon was emptied. The Moor's voice was suddenly uplifted.
+
+"To me, Sidi!" he was shouting vehemently. "To me!"
+
+The native officer thundered an order. In a twinkling the men were back
+in their saddles and, in irregular formation, threading the aisles of
+thicket at a canter. Aylmer and Rattier followed the sergeant, riding
+abreast.
+
+There came another report. A bullet whistled between the pair, and from
+Rattier came a little growl of satisfaction. If there was to be a fight,
+he seemed to imply, his promised interview with Landon would assume
+proportions which were entirely pleasing to him. Perinaud increased his
+horse's pace, flinging alert glances each side of him rather than in
+front.
+
+A couple of hundred yards at speed and the forest maze opened into a
+wide clearing, deeply overgrown with mallow and broom. Through the
+middle of this, his horse laboring against the growth which was full
+five feet high, rode Daoud, revolver in hand. A short distance ahead of
+him the green thicket was grooved in half a dozen places, as unseen
+bodies crashed through. Daoud's aim was poised and then withdrawn a
+score of times in as many seconds. The flicker of a white _haik_ would
+show for a brief instant here and there, and then be swallowed by the
+jungle.
+
+Daoud would answer these appearances with a bullet, one which apparently
+invariably missed its mark, for the echo of a mocking triumph greeted
+them. He turned irritably in the direction of his companions.
+
+He waved his hand significantly, motioning them to deploy right and
+left, to surround the thicket. Perinaud answered with a comprehending
+nod.
+
+But Rattier had neither the time nor the inclination for a display of
+tactics. As Daoud turned his horse to emerge from the mallow, the
+commandant spurred his charger into the thick of it. And he shouted, he
+whirled up his right hand, grasping his revolver, with fierce
+gesticulations of encouragement.
+
+The Goumiers saw, heard, and found little room for hesitation in their
+mood. Like a torrent released at the breaking of a dam, they followed.
+Perinaud thundered an ineffectual protest.
+
+It fell on deaf ears. The green brake was furrowed by a dozen lanes
+before their impact and then, relentlessly, as it seemed, closed behind
+them. The horses bucked, plunged, but made little headway. From one of
+them came a sudden whinnying shriek of pain.
+
+Then it sank under its rider as the knife which had severed its tendons
+slipped back into the cover from which it had been so swiftly and so
+silently thrust.
+
+The fallen Goumier cleared himself and scrambled to his feet. His face
+alone was clear in the sea of vegetation, and it was a mask of anger and
+bewilderment. And then it, too, was gone with a sudden panting cry.
+
+Aylmer gave a little gasp. The head was there and then it was not. It
+sank into the green as the swimmer sinks into the blue in a
+shark-infested sea. But this shark was a human one, and its teeth a long
+Berber knife. The fugitives of the Beni M'Geel had chosen their
+battle-ground well.
+
+Horse or man, lance or carbine--what were they against the daggers which
+the tussocks veiled? Mocking cries echoed in the thicket. Another horse
+shrieked and fell; another face showed white above the green and then
+was gone. The Goumiers snarled with rage as they spurred furiously
+forward, but the clinging mallow held them, shackled them, suffocated
+them with its density. There was a note of panic in their shouts; they
+battled no longer for victory but for escape.
+
+The leader of the reckless charge was in slightly better case than the
+majority. Rattier and one or two others, by chance of circumstances,
+stood in wider spaces, where the dagger men could not reach them unseen.
+They sat in their saddles, alert for opportunity, quivering with rage,
+but useless. Their glances flashed from side to side, their eyes
+gleamed, but opportunity evaded them. And the cries of the unseen enemy
+still mocked them from the ambush.
+
+Carried away by impulse, Aylmer would have joined the charge. Perinaud's
+hand fell upon his reins with a grip of iron. Aylmer made as if he would
+release them by force.
+
+The sergeant made a gesture of appeal.
+
+"No, my Captain! This is serious. A little coolness, a little restraint,
+and we pull them out of this! But to follow! That spells death for us
+all!"
+
+He leaped from the saddle, drew his carbine from the bucket, and flung
+to Aylmer the reins of both horses.
+
+"If Monsieur will be so obliging?" he said quickly, and turned towards
+the nearest tree, a cedar which towered twenty feet above the dwarfed
+bolls of cork. He climbed lithely, rapidly, resting, at last, within a
+few feet of the top. He leaned his carbine upon a bough, took a steady
+aim, and fired.
+
+A shriek answered the report--a shriek muffled in the blanket of the
+broom.
+
+"_Courage, mes enfants!_" said Perinaud, placidly. "That accounted for
+one, and from here I see all. There are but six. Give me time and the
+affair completes itself effectually."
+
+Again he dwelled upon his aim, hesitated, fired, shook his head in
+self-reproach and fired again. This time he gave a little nod of
+satisfaction.
+
+"Two!" he cried complacently. "Two, my children!" and the report of his
+rifle punctuated the announcement. "So!" went on the sergeant, as if he
+commented on the score at a rifle range. "So! We write full stop to
+_Monsieur le troisieme_. Aha! _Messieurs quatrieme_, _cinquieme_ and
+_sixieme_--it is poor stuff to push through, the broom. No, I do not see
+you, Messieurs, but I see where you run like rabbits, and perhaps we may
+chance a bullet--there!"
+
+The report of the last cartridge in the magazine was answered by another
+yell. A brown-clad body shot into the air out of the undergrowth and
+subsided limply. Perinaud nodded again.
+
+"Through the brain, my friend, through the brain. Yes, I still see you,
+my two little doves. We have to reload. Four for one magazine of five
+cartridges is not bad, you will allow. You are trapped, are you not? In
+the broom you cannot escape me; in the open you will be ridden down.
+Well, it is to be in the broom, is it? So! _Voila, Monsieur le
+cinquieme!_ That closes your account. As for you, my sixth friend, you
+have chosen the thicket, have you? You are very still; we must
+speculate, we must invite the co-operation of chance, who is a good
+friend to Sergeant Perinaud as a rule. There! No, is that not in the
+middle of the target? We must try again. Umph! I wonder if you are,
+after all, dead, my pigeon. Hola, there! Monsieur le Commandant. If you
+will be good enough to step fifteen long paces to the right, following
+the motion of my hand, you will be able to inform me if my last shot was
+a bull's-eye, an outer, or even--shame to me if it is so--a miss. Yes,
+Monsieur, that is the spot. Where the patch of broom outcrops between
+those two stumps of cork."
+
+Rattier beat a road laboriously through the clinging stems as the
+sergeant's finger motioned. A sudden muffled exclamation burst from him;
+he lurched sideways, stumbled, and fell prone. The green stalks rustled
+and shook as something brown and indistinguishable shot through them in
+the direction in which the waiting Goumiers were thickest.
+
+Perinaud gave a warning cry.
+
+"Look to yourselves! I cannot shoot; he is in line between us!"
+
+One of the horsemen shouted and spurred his stallion towards the fringe
+of the undergrowth furthest from the point at which the charge had
+entered it. His impulsive action countered Perinaud's manifest purpose
+of firing, for he, too, had seen the agitation of the mallow in that
+direction. The horseman bounded forward, the horse clearing the
+obstructions in a series of jerky little leaps. Beside the edge of the
+clearing they halted, the man searching the cover in front of him and on
+each side keenly.
+
+A brown something snaked out of the thicket at his back. Steel flashed
+in the sun. The Goumier toppled from the saddle, and a brown figure,
+bowing flat across the horse's withers, seemed to have replaced him
+almost in the moment of his fall. Spurred desperately by his new rider,
+the stallion burst away down the cork tree alleys.
+
+A ragged volley rattled out. Splinters flew wide from a dozen trees, but
+horse and rider fled on. The Goumiers called fiercely on the name of a
+dozen saints of Islam to qualify their rage as they thrust their
+chargers out of the tangle in pursuit. Perinaud and their officer yelled
+strenuous commands.
+
+Crestfallen and sullen, the troopers reined in, listening in silence to
+the commination addressed to them from the pulpit of the cedar.
+
+"Is one lesson insufficient?" thundered Perinaud. "Do we practise the
+arts of war or are we conducting a _ralli-papier_? Like hares you were
+decoyed into this ambush, and, flinging your red-hot experience to the
+winds, you are prepared to be drawn, as likely as not, into another.
+Collect yourselves, morally as well as physically, if you please."
+
+They reined in among the cork trees, and half a dozen, flinging their
+reins to comrades, pushed back on foot into the cover. A string of
+oaths and maledictions, twice repeated, told of what they found. They
+came back with the sullen tread of those bearing the heavy burdens of
+defeat and death. They laid the bodies of their two comrades at the foot
+of the cedar.
+
+Rattier, leaning upon Aylmer's arm, swore vehemently. The blood dripped
+from a gash across his wrist, but he raised it to shake a fist in the
+direction taken by the fugitive.
+
+"Another item in M. de Landon's ledger, name of all names!" he cried.
+"But we shall see, my friends, we shall see. The hand is not played out
+yet, believe me!"
+
+"Perhaps not," agreed Aylmer, "but you, at any rate, have cut out of the
+deal, or have been cut out," he added significantly, pointing to the
+wounded arm.
+
+The commandant drew himself away with a fierce jerk.
+
+"I!" he cried. "Is a cut finger--a graze--to send me weeping to the
+ambulance? The scoundrel who deceived me I pursue to the world's end! He
+has scored once more. It is the last time--this!"
+
+He raised himself to his full height in a grandiloquent gesture
+and--fell fainting into Perinaud's arms. The sergeant grunted morosely
+and pointed to a crimson stain which had welled through the blue tunic
+and was rapidly spreading.
+
+"If it is not serious, I thank Our Lady and all the listening Saints for
+this!" he said devoutly. "He is impossible as a colleague on
+reconnaissance, this energetic commandant. It was his recklessness which
+led these men into a trap which at any other moment they would have
+avoided. We have lost two men and five horses by the result of this
+escapade. What are your suggestions now, Monsieur?"
+
+Aylmer hesitated.
+
+"For the moment have you not done enough?" he asked. "After all, your
+service is to France, not to intruders like myself. My Moorish servant
+and I might continue to reconnoitre alone. Your hands are full enough,
+are they not?"
+
+The other looked at him queerly.
+
+"Perhaps Monsieur thinks that so far we have been a hindrance rather
+than a help to his purposes. Monsieur has reason. At the same time we
+might justly, in my opinion, be permitted another chance to repair our
+prestige."
+
+Aylmer smiled. Perinaud's voice was chilly. The glance he directed at
+the crestfallen Goumiers let it be inferred that his words were also
+designed to reach their address. They shuffled and kicked at the ground
+restlessly as they listened.
+
+"It is for you, of course, to direct matters, Sergeant!" he said
+quickly. "But the commandant, without a doubt, must be removed at once
+to hospital."
+
+"Without a doubt, Monsieur," agreed Perinaud, with sudden cheerfulness.
+"We will escort him and the dismounted men out of the forest into the
+open farm lands, where patrols are not infrequent and nothing is to be
+feared. They will then be about twenty kilometres from the town. The
+best mounted will proceed as quickly as possible to fetch the ambulance.
+Of the others, twenty will escort the commandant's stretcher--it is
+perfectly feasible to make a good one of poles which we will cut and
+over which we will button two greatcoats--the five new-made _fantassins_
+will walk. The remaining dozen and you and I, Monsieur, will
+proceed--with energy, if you please, but certainly with prudence."
+
+Perinaud closed his little homily with the satisfied air of an orator
+who has arrived at and correctly delivered an anticipated peroration.
+
+And chance, who may have been listening, offered yet another of her
+favors to her protege. As the little column debouched from the trees
+into the open expanse of alluvial country, a cloud of brown dust was
+rising on the far side of the fringing barley fields. Perinaud gave an
+exclamation of content.
+
+"It is the Tirailleurs with their major," he explained. "They have
+patrolled the Ber Rechid road and made a reconnaissance to get cattle.
+They will have an ambulance, or at least a mule litter."
+
+He put his horse to the gallop. The others, following more sedately, saw
+him reach and disappear among the ranks of white-uniformed men, whose
+cummerbunds and tarbooshes winked a cheerful scarlet against the dun
+fallow or green cropping of the fields. And there was an air of
+animation about the column accounted for, perhaps, by the fact that
+innumerable kids frisked about their mothers as the captured goats were
+herded along the track, while droves of small, wiry cattle bellowed and
+butted at each other, their captors, and every moving object within
+reach of their serviceable little horns.
+
+Perinaud, who had dismounted, was standing and speaking with an air of
+respect and precision to a mounted officer. The latter turned as Aylmer
+and his companions approached, and the former could barely restrain a
+start of consternation and surprise. For a deep, flaming groove dinted
+the man's forehead from temple to temple, while the hand which he raised
+in salute was one huge scar from knuckles to wrist. His brown eyes
+inspected Aylmer with friendly attention.
+
+"At your service, _mon Capitaine_," he said. "Sergeant Perinaud has
+explained your needs."
+
+Aylmer began to express his thanks. The other nodded pleasantly and gave
+an order. From the rear an ambulance was trotted forward: a
+gray-moustached doctor in uniform swung himself from his saddle and bent
+over Rattier, who was still unconscious.
+
+A moment later he looked up.
+
+"Loss of blood," he said laconically. "He has a gash two fingers deep
+behind the shoulder. Severe, but not serious--with care. We will see to
+him."
+
+The officer nodded again. He looked at Aylmer.
+
+"And yourself, Monsieur?" he asked.
+
+Aylmer made a gesture towards the forest and the distant uplands.
+
+"With your leave, we will continue our--investigations, Major," he said.
+
+The other shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"The forest, _mon ami_? We, do you see, have confined our operations so
+far to the plough lands, the open. I have no store of experience to draw
+upon for your advice. You will be pioneers. I shall hope to have the
+benefit of your experience on your return. Maillot is my name, Monsieur,
+and I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you at the headquarters of my
+regiment outside the Fedallah Gate. For the moment, then, _au revoir_!"
+
+He smiled cheerfully, saluted, and gave an order. The tramp and jingle
+of the march were renewed. The dust cloud began to form again where it
+had settled, and the Tirailleurs swung off seawards with the elastic
+step which those who wear the _godillot_ acquire, and which makes them
+the envy of their colleagues in the regulars who are doomed to the
+precise lacing of the _soulier_. Perinaud made a gesture of admiration,
+as with Aylmer and his half score of Goumiers he watched them go.
+
+"Monsieur has seen the bravest man and the finest leader of all the
+troops of France," he remarked.
+
+"Major Maillot?"
+
+"But certainly the major, Monsieur. He needs no medals to prove what he
+is and where he has been. His deeds are witnessed on his brow and
+hands."
+
+He hesitated and then spoke quickly.
+
+"I have no wish to vaunt the deeds of Frenchmen to you, a foreigner,
+Monsieur, but that is a man in whom we may take an honest pride. The
+scar you saw came to him by Settat. He and a picket were cut off from
+the main body by a hidden reserve of the enemy. They retreated fighting
+and were within measurable distance of safety. And then one of our
+fallen, whom they had left for dead, cried aloud out of the hands of the
+enemy. How these savages were dealing with him I shall not disgust
+Monsieur by telling. Suffice it to say that they were working the will
+of devils upon him and, in spite of his manhood, he shrieked. The major
+heard, and like a thunderbolt turned and charged straight for the enemy,
+and his men, without a thought of the peril, turned with him, a dozen
+perhaps, against five score. But those hundred Moors were in full
+retreat before the main body of the regiment raced up to the rescue, and
+they picked their major up wounded as you have seen, lying across the
+body of the man he had fought to save, with seven dead foes ringed round
+him.... They have a confident air, these Tirailleurs of ours. Some say
+an insolent one. Well, Monsieur, they have their pride, it must be
+allowed, but God knows when they are led as that man leads they have a
+right to it."
+
+Aylmer nodded. Slowly they turned their horses' heads forestwards again.
+Perinaud looked at the line of trees abstractedly and then back again at
+the receding column.
+
+"France does not desert her children if she remembers," he remarked
+quietly. "It is well that we met these men and their major. He is a man
+who will see to it that we are not forgotten, if chance wills that we do
+not soon return. The task of seeking us would be one after his own
+heart, and his Tirailleurs would think with him." He smiled confidently.
+"So we may go forward with an easy mind, _mon Capitaine_. We are
+pioneers, as the major said. To pioneers should come adventures, if they
+are worthy of their name."
+
+He touched his stallion's flank with the spur. The little band of
+horsemen cantered up and into the shadow of the cork trees. And there
+was an air of arrogance and recklessness about the riders. All trace of
+discomfiture of an hour back was gone. It was as if the Tirailleurs had
+breathed an infection of valor around them--a bacillus of intrepidity
+which their major had cultivated with the point of his untiring sword.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE TRAP
+
+
+"That our friends have left is obvious," said Daoud. "The question is
+how long ago and whither."
+
+The litter of a recently disturbed encampment cumbered the ground. Rags,
+the feathers of lately plucked chickens, the ashes of recently
+extinguished fires abounded. But whether the camp had been struck days
+or only hours before it was impossible to determine. Night as well as
+day had been rainless, and the dry dust left no trail perceptible to
+European eyes. Daoud, however, examined the soil carefully.
+
+"They have gone south," he declared at last. "They have struck out of
+the forest and back towards the plain. This grows interesting."
+
+Perinaud gave a sniff.
+
+"The reason is obvious," he said a little contemptuously. "Where did
+they obtain water? From the spring which welled up at the foot of that
+cactus to the left. But now it is dry and cracking mud."
+
+Daoud nodded grudgingly.
+
+"Possibly," he allowed. "The nearest wells are at Ain Djemma."
+
+"Held in force by two companies of the Legion," said Perinaud. "They are
+hardly likely to show themselves there. No, if they have gone south they
+are seeking the Wad el Mella. They will follow the stream through the
+gorge towards their own foothills from which it issues."
+
+"This river? How far is it?" asked Aylmer.
+
+"Eight kilometres, possibly ten," said Perinaud. "There are _duars_ and
+encampments along its banks in a dozen places. We ought to get news of
+our men, even if we do not overtake them."
+
+"Our horses have come a matter of thirty kilometres already," said
+Aylmer.
+
+"Then as soon as possible they must do ten more," answered the sergeant,
+energetically. "Without water we cannot camp, any more than our friends
+of the Beni M'Geel. _En avance!_"
+
+Aylmer drew his horse up beside Perinaud's as for the second time they
+left the shelter of the trees and ambled out on to the plain. The
+westering sun was turning it to broad belts of dun, and yellow, and
+green, as the slanting beams fell upon earth, or marigold weed, or
+crops. Four or five miles distant to their front the rolling uplands
+culminated in a belt of squat but far-branching trees.
+
+"There, one may suppose, are the river and the gorge," he suggested.
+"The inhabitants of these _duars_, of which you speak? How will they
+greet us?"
+
+Perinaud shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"It remains for Fate to show us, Monsieur. There were some drastic
+whippings of the Moors within this district a few weeks back. How well
+they have learned the lesson taught them then we shall have to prove."
+
+Aylmer hesitated.
+
+"It is not with the purpose of getting embroiled in skirmishes that I
+have come," he said quietly. "You understand that my duty, for the
+moment, is to keep myself alive until my object is achieved."
+
+Perinaud grinned drily.
+
+"That is a remark which a poltroon would not have dared to make,
+Monsieur, and shows you to be a brave man. Be assured that my efforts
+towards maintaining an unperforated skin will be as energetic as your
+own. Hysterical madness, such as we were involved in in the forest,
+shall not recur, if I can help it. My purpose is to camp, as soon as we
+reach water, and then to allow your omniscient Monsieur Daoud to conduct
+his investigations under cover of the darkness."
+
+As the red disk of the sun sank below the seaward horizon, they topped
+the gentle rise which terminated in a belt of trees. Not far below them,
+belling musically through the dusk, came the song of the ripples. Half a
+mile away, on the far side of the gorge, a dim light twinkled in the
+growing darkness.
+
+Perinaud pointed towards a group of palms.
+
+"Here, Monsieur," he explained, "you will find dry earth. You have your
+cloak. Your saddle is a practical pillow. I have bread, a ration or two
+of preserved soup, some beans, coffee, a tin of milk, sugar. At the
+_duar_, where we see that light, are--possibly--chickens. But we are
+quite as likely to receive a bullet. What does Monsieur advise?"
+
+Aylmer smiled.
+
+"An immediate picnic. In the friendliest of _duars_ cannibal hordes
+thirsting for our blood would await us, if we were reckless enough to
+sleep among them. I prefer to housekeep _a la belle etoile_."
+
+The sergeant nodded and gave his orders. Sentries slipped right and left
+into the night. A tiny fire was kindled in a hollow between two
+boulders. The tins of preserved soup gave up their secrets, and the
+ration bread proved that the military bakers of France have discovered
+the secret of making loaves which will remain fresh and eatable through
+a whole week of desert marches. Coffee succeeded--coffee made in the
+empty vegetable tin, and worthy of Maxim's or the Ritz.
+
+Daoud drank his portion, shrugged his shoulders fatalistically at the
+sleeping places which the Goumiers were preparing, and then, without
+comment, vanished into the night.
+
+Aylmer lay back upon his cloak, his head pillowed upon his arm, his pipe
+between his teeth. He was enjoying to the full the sensations of a
+pleasantly weary and well-fed horseman. The first drowsy challenge of
+sleep touched his eyes and brain.
+
+The very next instant, as it seemed to him, he was on his feet, revolver
+in hand, searching the dark aisles of the forest on either side. A shout
+had echoed from one of the sentries, a hoarse challenge followed almost
+on the instant by a shot.
+
+The cry was repeated, shriller this time with the insistence of anxiety.
+"_Au secours!_" came the Goumier's voice. "_Au secours!_ There are a
+score of them; they are all around me!"
+
+In silence, but with a wave of the hand, Perinaud dispersed his men into
+open order and doubled towards the sounds of conflict. Aylmer ran with
+them, making more noise in his heavy boots than the whole of the party
+made in their _souliers_. He heard Perinaud whisper an emphatic oath of
+disgust as he tripped over a fallen branch and smashed heavily through a
+cactus bush. The next instant both of them fell together, over a soft,
+woolly obstruction, which stirred faintly under their feet. Meanwhile,
+half a dozen rifles were flashing red in the night, and the woodland
+echoes tossed the reports from thicket to thicket.
+
+Perinaud swore again viciously, scrambled to his feet, and shouted.
+
+"Imbeciles! Cease fire!" he thundered. "They are sheep, these Moors of
+yours, sheep! A pretty night's work! You have killed probably a dozen,
+and we have no means of transport."
+
+Shamefacedly the Goumiers crowded round to feel the fatness of the
+victim which had lain in Aylmer's path. As they felt and appraised it,
+their voices resumed a note of philosophic content. It was indeed a slur
+upon the collectedness of the Goumiers as a whole that Hassan el Fehmi,
+the sentry, had been betrayed into this indiscretion. But the dead
+sheep, look you, was of an unlooked-for plumpness, and breakfast must be
+partaken of sooner or later. There would be cutlets, and room might be
+found on a saddle or two for a couple of _gigots_. No, this was not all
+loss, this night alarm. There were compensations.
+
+Perinaud declined to meet these representations in the spirit in which
+they were made.
+
+"Looters! Robbers of hen roosts!" he cried. "The whole of your thoughts
+are centered, as ever, on your unworthy stomachs. The compensation for
+this outrage will be made to the owners from your pay, let me tell you,
+from your pay! You have raised the country on us with your shootings;
+within a matter of minutes we shall have the Moors here in earnest, be
+assured of that!"
+
+Wrathfully he led the way back to the bivouac and carefully extinguished
+every cinder of the fire.
+
+"And now," he ordered, "our duty is to wait--beside our horses. If it
+will not inconvenience Monsieur, I should be obliged if he will defer
+sleeping, for the present. If we are not molested for the next hour or
+two, it will be different. The moon rises before midnight and after that
+a couple of sentries will amply suffice."
+
+It was a memory which stayed by Aylmer for many a month--that long,
+silent, and very weary vigil of the next few hours. He sat, with his
+back supported by a palm trunk, the haltering rein of his horse in his
+hand, his eyes trying vainly to pierce the gloom which surrounded him,
+and his ears strained to attention.
+
+The forest, though in the windless calm not a leaf fluttered, was full
+of disquieting noises. There were rustlings, faint, half perceptible
+crackings of twigs, dull, muffled, resistant sounds from the earth which
+must surely be caused by human footfall. Once his whole frame sprung
+into startled alertness as a night bird shrieked in the cork branches
+not twenty yards away. The faint but distinct after-echo of a chorussed
+sigh told him how a dozen other pulses had leaped with his. The quick,
+irregular darting run of a small animal--a jerboa or a forest
+rat--produced a little less disturbing effect. But the soft, stolid
+breathing of his horse, as its breath beat past his shoulder, was a
+soothing, soporific sound which his nerves welcomed, yet seemed to
+protest against as tending to lull him into an unalert insecurity. With
+a sudden qualm of reproach he found his head dropping sideways and
+smiting lightly the trunk of the palm. He drew himself up with a quick,
+decisive tautening of his muscles. He would not sleep; his eyelids
+almost ached with the intensity with which he held them apart.
+
+Sleep, like fate, is a tricky jade to defy. It was Perinaud's voice,
+level and stolid, but with a faint note of sarcasm, which aroused him.
+
+"Monsieur may now sleep in comfort if he will," suggested the sergeant.
+"There is little fear from surprise with such a moon."
+
+Aylmer blinked. The round white orb was sending its rays in full flood
+through the broad fans of the palm leaves overhead. It tinged the cork
+trees with silver radiance; it produced an effect of grateful coolness
+in the cinder-dry thickets and powdery earth. It was as if dew had
+fallen, a dew of light. And the shadows of the gorge were of a velvet
+blackness in contrast.
+
+Aylmer looked carefully round. It was as Perinaud said. The forest
+spaces were clear; one could trace them almost as distinctly as in the
+daylight. No enemy could steal upon them unseen.
+
+And so it was with a little sigh of content that he laid his head back
+upon his saddle, pulled his cloak more disposedly about him, and
+prepared to give nature freely what during the past three hours she had
+stolen.
+
+With the usual result. Sleep deserted him. He closed his eyes
+resolutely; he breathed with exact precision; he even counted an
+imaginary flock of sheep as they passed sedately between two
+supposititious hurdles. He remained broadly awake, his eyes rebelling
+against their imprisonment till at last he gave up trying to coerce
+them. He searched his pocket, found tobacco and a pipe, and smoked. His
+brain became suddenly active.
+
+He reviewed the circumstances of the last few days. He debated his
+position, appraised his progress. It was typical of his temperament
+equability that he did this; it was part of the dogged resolution with
+which he approached the vital problems of his career. He knew that for
+the first time he had encountered passion, and that it had mastered him.
+He had seen Claire Van Arlen perhaps half a dozen times before he
+realized this, and realized it, too, with a certain ingenuous wonder at
+the thing which had such power over him. But he had made no attempt to
+combat it. He knew that this girl had become for him the pivot of
+existence. As matters had gone, he had scarcely had the opportunity for
+introspection. Passion had gripped him, and now passion's authority had
+gone beyond the limits of question. He set his face unswervingly towards
+his goal. The days of debating an alternative path had gone by.
+
+He sighed. Up the path he had chosen had he made any progress? Yes, one
+great step had been taken. She knew the goal he sought; he had made it
+absolutely plain. He had read repulse in her eyes as she first divined
+it. He had read it again, but tinged with a thrill of curiosity, at his
+second allusion. The third time? There he was beaten. She had seemed to
+fling him a sort of encouragement. Why? What was her intention here? She
+had not softened towards him; instinct told him that. And yet--and yet.
+He sighed again. There were many barriers in this road he had set out
+upon--barriers which must be levelled one by one. Dislike, suspicion,
+but not, thank God, apathy. No--from the first he had interested
+her--from the moment of their first meeting he had been forced into
+prominence in her regard.
+
+A hand fell lightly upon his shoulder, bringing him back with a start
+from the possibilities of romance to the facts of an everyday African
+world. The most engrossing of these, for the moment, was Daoud's face.
+
+There was a sense of importance in the Moor's aspect, the importance of
+discovery. Aylmer realized this at once.
+
+"You have discovered--what?" he asked sharply.
+
+Daoud waved his hand with a magnificent and comprehensive gesture.
+
+"All, Sidi," he answered. "The two we seek, with the child, are in an
+encampment of Berber tribesmen within an hour's march."
+
+Aylmer scrambled to his feet. He made but little noise as he did so, but
+there was a corresponding movement in the half-dozen recumbent figures
+beside him. Perinaud, raising himself upon his elbow, looked
+thoughtfully at the scout.
+
+"Well, my friend?" he asked amiably. "Your researches take us where?"
+
+"Five miles further up the ravine," said Daoud. "It is more than a camp.
+A village of some importance. Our friend who escaped from the broom
+thicket has not arrived there. There was no alertness, no watch kept. By
+the time I left snores were echoing from practically every tent and
+dwelling of mud. We are not expected."
+
+Perinaud nodded.
+
+"_Bien._ The moment of attack then--?"
+
+"Is now, Sidi. By the time we reach it the dawn will have come."
+
+Aylmer fumbled for his watch. It was true. The hour was between four and
+five. The wan light of the false morning was, indeed, faintly paling the
+east. He looked at Perinaud.
+
+The sergeant nodded.
+
+"Short rest for the horses, Monsieur," he said, "but that we cannot
+help. The time is short enough, as it is."
+
+He motioned the waiting figures of the Goumiers into activity. The
+sentries were recalled. A tiny fire was kindled, and coffee made with
+incredible quickness while the saddles were being flung upon the horses'
+backs.
+
+Aylmer gulped his portion gratefully, for the dew-brimmed air was chill.
+But within twenty minutes of Daoud's return, the half score of horsemen
+were following him in single file along the river bank.
+
+Progress was slow, the path imperceptible or devious. The light of
+morning was no longer yellow, but alive with the rose red of sunrise as
+they halted, at a gesture from their leader, and gazed between the
+trunks of a grove of palms.
+
+White against the green of crops a dozen houses lined the edge of an
+oval space, which some winter floods of bygone years had hewn deep in
+the surrounding alluvial soil. The forest thickets grew up to the fringe
+of the arable land, divided from it by hedges of cactus. Between the
+house and the river was an encampment of brown, dilapidated tents. The
+land immediately in front of these was bare and open, as if some
+ceaseless traffic had beaten all vegetation down. On an eminence stood a
+lime-washed, dome-topped shrine.
+
+"If possible, we should surround and examine each house or tent in
+silence, and one by one," suggested Daoud.
+
+"A matter of hours," said Perinaud. "No, let our men form rank where
+their rifles command each doorway, and I will see to the summoning of
+the inhabitants. For the moment, softly. Keep your horses off the rock,
+but avoid the thickest of the jungle. Show judgment, my children, show
+judgment!"
+
+He finished with a little oath of surprise. For almost at his horse's
+feet, or, at the furthest, a bare five yards from him, a man had
+suddenly risen from a thicket--a man clad in a dirty _djelab_, who
+viewed the sitting horsemen with every sign of amazement and sudden
+panic. In another moment, and with a shrill cry, he had darted through
+the palm grove and was flying across the crop lands, straight towards
+the line of silent tents.
+
+Perinaud struck spurs into his stallion.
+
+"Take him!" he cried, and his voice had a queer note of exasperation as
+he tried to make it vehement and yet hold it below the level of a shout.
+He led the charge which raced across the herbage. Aylmer, carried away
+by the sudden infection of repressed excitement, thundered at his side.
+The dark spot of brown made by the _djelab_ of the fugitive seemed, for
+the moment, to comprehend all that was vital in existence. He must not
+reach the tents, he must not give the alarm. Although he was a matter of
+fifty yards or more behind his quarry, owing to the start the runner had
+gained by the intervening palms, Aylmer began to lean forward in the
+saddle, to thrust out his arm, feel a tenseness, a twitching in his
+fingers as if he already grasped the hood of the garment which rose and
+fell with its owner's every stride.
+
+A yell burst from Perinaud's lips--a yell of rage and warning!
+
+"A trap!" he cried. "The silos! The silos! Pull wide! Pull wide!"
+
+Aylmer heard a crash. A Goumier on his right seemed to have been
+swallowed with his horse into the very earth. He gripped his own rein,
+moved by a sudden and imperfectly comprehended pulse of fear, and
+wrenched at his bridle. His horse fought under the strain, made a
+half-hearted attempt to halt, and was carried by mere impetus another
+fifty yards. There came another crash; another Goumier's horse
+disappeared, while the man, spilled from the saddle, rolled over a dozen
+times across the hardened flat. Perinaud's stallion, its eyes wild, its
+nostrils round with terror, spread out its legs and skated forward to
+the very brink of--what?
+
+A huge round hole, beneath which was darkness only. Aylmer saw it, saw
+that he himself must reach it, and comprehended as in a flash the
+sergeant's cry.
+
+The silos!
+
+Even his narrow experience of things Moroquin had taught him what the
+word meant. They were the underground grain cellars of the villagers,
+sunk in the earth, unfenced, often coverless, and, as now, open traps
+for the unwary. The thought and the flash of apprehension which it
+kindled added force to the grip with which he tore at the reins.
+
+Too late!
+
+His realization of the hideous fall which was inevitable was swift as a
+lightning flash, and yet at the same time the thing itself seemed to
+arrive with a horrible deliberation. His thews were tense, his knees
+clutched the saddle. And then, and the feeling was as if he watched for
+the culmination of a well-understood and expected movement of familiar
+machinery--his horse's feet slid grudgingly over the edge. The black
+hole in the earth rose instantly--rose and sucked him down. There was a
+shock and then night fell--a night impenetrable.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+ONE SIDE OF A BARGAIN
+
+
+"It's the pig man," said a childish voice. "The man what lifted me out
+of the way of the boar."
+
+Aylmer blinked. Himself in the shadow, he was aware of a figure opposite
+him in the center of a circle of light. He lay, apparently, in a
+circular and unfurnished room, lit by an unglazed skylight alone. The
+figure, which sat cross-legged on a lump which his returning senses
+discovered to be a dead horse, wore the white _haik_ and the bournous of
+a Moor. The hood was drawn back, showing bronzed aquiline features and a
+brown beard, but the man's eyes were blue. Aylmer studied the face with
+a feeling of bewilderment which gradually became irritation. He was
+stunned, but consciousness had so far returned that he knew himself
+stunned, and knew, also, that his brain was confronting a problem which
+his normal powers would have grappled with easily. He ought to be able
+to recognize his visitor; there was familiarity, there was recognition
+in the man's sneering smile. And yet, who was he? Aylmer moved
+restlessly, petulantly. An excruciating pang leaped up through his
+shoulder and made him gasp. The man shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Dislocated, I fear," he said in level English accents. "And the
+collar-bone most certainly fractured."
+
+Aylmer's ear served him where his eyes had failed. The voice was
+Landon's. It was his cousin who sat opposite him, smiling evilly from
+the shadow of the _haik_.
+
+Something touched the wounded shoulder lightly, but not so lightly but
+that Aylmer winced again.
+
+"Poor--poor!" said the childish voice again commiseratingly. "Is it
+badly hurted? When I fell off my pony they rubbed me wiv butter."
+
+It was his little namesake, swaddled in white flowing garments, who
+stood at his elbow, peering into his face with anxious eyes.
+
+Aylmer pulled himself into a sitting position, not without intense pain.
+But the throb of his wounded arm seemed to awake his dulled
+consciousness. He looked from father to son without bewilderment. His
+understanding had fully regained command of the situation.
+
+His first action was typical of the man; he fumbled with his left hand
+at his holster.
+
+Landon laughed.
+
+"Empty, my dear John," he said. "Fogs, gales, the menacing hand of
+nature I do not pretend to have my remedy for. But I retain the
+common-sense which deprives my enemy of a weapon, when opportunity is my
+friend."
+
+Aylmer was still silent. Landon gave a self-satisfied little nod of the
+head, a little motion which implied the insolence of triumph fully
+enjoyed.
+
+"And by opportunity, please understand that I do not refer to mere
+chance," he went on. "The little _ruse de guerre_ by which you and your
+associates were drawn into this trap was the product of an active brain,
+not mine, I grieve to say. A friend who has seen much of desert
+bickerings did not invent but adapted it. I don't think many of your
+beautiful Goumiers escaped him and his allies."
+
+There was something more than disgust and repulsion in the glance with
+which Aylmer regarded his cousin. It was, perhaps, wonder.
+
+"Libertine--blackmailer--spy--and thief--you have proved yourself all of
+these within the space of half a dozen years," he said quietly. "And
+now, traitor, and, I suppose, assassin. It puzzles me. Clean living
+isn't so hard, and yet, you have never tried it, never!"
+
+A queer line showed in Landon's cheek, as his lips tightened against
+each other. And then he laughed again--a harsh, unconvincing little
+laugh.
+
+"Is the first line of attack an appeal to my better nature?" he asked.
+"Omit it, my friend. However good your aim, you cannot reach a target
+which, to be frank, is non-existent. Appeals to my self-interest find me
+alert, but to my conscience, chill as ice. We may chaffer, you and I,
+but on strictly business lines."
+
+He settled himself back upon the dead horse's shoulder, pulled out a
+silver case, and selected a cigarette. He lit it, talking slowly,
+between puffs.
+
+"My apparently unkinsmanlike conduct in offering no attention to your
+wound is easily explained. It is a small matter, involved in far larger
+issues. If you meet my terms, our limited resources in that and other
+matters will be at your service. If not--" He shrugged his shoulders
+placidly. "Well, I do not suppose a prison governor pays attention to
+the condemned's complaints of his breakfast egg on the morning of
+execution."
+
+He moved, leaning forward at last, his elbows on his knees, his palms
+supporting his chin. And he looked down at Aylmer malignantly.
+
+"And I have you here to make or break as I will," he said. "By God!
+Opportunity doesn't call me twice. I clutch her!"
+
+The child turned with a little start, looking at his father with puzzled
+but not apprehensive eyes. The note of malice in that voice was
+evidently strange to him, and Aylmer, as he understood this fact,
+breathed a tiny sigh of relief. The child, at any rate, did not suffer
+ill-treatment.
+
+Landon saw the motion and his features relaxed into something like
+affection.
+
+He held out his hands.
+
+"Come here, my son," he said. "Go and find Muhammed."
+
+As the child ran forward, he caught him deftly and without a pause of
+energy tossed him up and out into the sunlight. Aylmer heard the boy's
+cry of welcome and laugh of delight, as his footsteps pattered over the
+roof of the cellar and were lost. Muhammed, whoever that might be, was
+evidently not far away.
+
+His father settled down upon his seat again.
+
+"That," he said, with an upward jerk of the shoulder towards the opening
+above his head, "that is one of the things I have been robbed of. Also
+my comfort, my credit, my security, my ease. I have had to endure
+unpleasantness. I have had to descend, though as a mental exercise I do
+not count it a descent, to crime. Life, in fact, has been difficult for
+me lately, owing to the action of certain people--with whom you appear
+to have allied yourself. You and they have to get matters in a different
+perspective. Your efforts in future must be for, not against, me. They
+must, indeed, be directed to effacing unfortunate circumstances in the
+past which are detrimental to my well-being. That must be fully
+understood before we even begin to talk of terms."
+
+He looked up at Aylmer with a sudden quick, speculative flash of the
+eyes. The other met it steadily and equably.
+
+"Have we begun--to discuss terms?" he asked.
+
+"No!" Landon snapped the monosyllable with contemptuous emphasis. "No! I
+don't discuss them, let me tell you. I make them!"
+
+Aylmer met the announcement with a smile.
+
+"Ah," he said quietly, and something in his tone seemed to whip Landon's
+restrained spite over the border-line of fury.
+
+"Damn you!" he cried, "do you think I can't and won't humble the lot of
+you; do you think I'm to be robbed of the winning ace now, when I've got
+it in my hand? I tell you there isn't a thing in me you can appeal to.
+I've shunted notions; I'm out for the stuff; I'm in business for myself,
+for me!"
+
+He swayed to and fro upon the carcase, his face livid, his fingers
+unconsciously twining and plaiting the dead animal's mane. His teeth
+flashed, attracting, as it were, the core of the little light which
+reached the gloom--attracting it to intensify his fierce animal fury.
+For, as he swayed, and swore, the teeth shone behind his red lips like
+the fangs of a cornered wolf.
+
+And then, suddenly, darkly, the emotion was planed from his face. His
+features became mask-like in their imperturbability.
+
+"You had better listen carefully," he said. "First, I keep the boy. That
+goes without saying. I've got him. Secondly, they give me their
+engagement under bond not to molest me in my possession of him if I
+choose to visit America or England, or even if I marry again. Thirdly,
+old man Van Arlen pays me ten thousand pounds--pounds, mind, not
+dollars--within a week from now, and on the same date every year.
+Fourthly, you explain away the matter of the book I borrowed from your
+library. Explain it as you like; say I was drunk or insane or any sort
+of lie which suits you best. You'll have to give me your word of honor
+to do your best about that; I'll take it, because I know you believe in
+these shibboleths. Lastly, they're to keep quiet while I have a free
+hand with Despard."
+
+Aylmer gave an involuntary start, and Landon snarled--there is no other
+word for it--with savage rage.
+
+"By God, they've got to stand by and see me break him! He's hunted me
+through the courts and through the press of two hemispheres. He shall
+have his turn. Not all in a moment, either. A word here and a word
+there. A paragraph or two where they can't well be missed. Then rumors,
+and then a circumstantial story. Rush him into action and then, slowly,
+thoroughly, and perfectly plainly, bowl him out. Eh, that will be the
+gilded roof on the whole thing. Despard down in the mud--Despard ...
+broken!"
+
+His fingers ceased their wandering. He sat motionless, his eyes staring
+gloatingly into the gloom over Aylmer's head. It was as if he saw
+visions of evil triumph limned upon the walls.
+
+Aylmer lay very still. The sense of inertia which had been overpowering
+when consciousness first revived was passing away. His brain was clear.
+He realized that for all practical purposes he was in the hands of a
+madman, or of a man so far enthralled by a very possession of wickedness
+that he might be reckoned insane. There was nothing to do but await
+events.
+
+Landon dropped his eyes.
+
+"Do you see?" he asked. "That's your job. To go to them and tell them.
+Do you understand?"
+
+Aylmer shook his head.
+
+"I hear your price--for what?" he asked. "It's a one-sided bargain, so
+far."
+
+"The goods that I have to deliver," said Landon, slowly, "are what I put
+safely out of your way a moment ago. That boy's health, and mental
+and--moral, too, if you like--strength. Do you get the notion?"
+
+For a moment the silence remained unbroken. Then Aylmer spoke.
+
+"You devil!" he said slowly. "You incarnate fiend!"
+
+Landon laughed again, with complacent satisfaction.
+
+"You do get the notion," he said. "Let your mind dwell upon it, give it
+deliberation. I sha'n't kill the boy, oh, not for a long time. I shall
+keep him alive; he'll even enjoy the process. I'll bring him up
+carefully, very carefully. There isn't a form of life as I've seen it
+that he sha'n't be familiar with. You may hunt me from England; you may
+make it hot for me in Europe and America. There are plenty of lively
+resorts in this good old continent of Africa which will amply fulfill my
+purpose. I'll put him through the mill; I'll begin early, too. I sha'n't
+leave much to luck. If by any chance you brought about my death, and I
+credit you with grit enough to attempt it, you'll find the kid
+well-grounded. He shall be his father's son, and a bit more. I hadn't
+the advantages he's going to have."
+
+The flush of anger which had mounted to Aylmer's face was gone now. He
+looked at Landon keenly, indeed, but with more curiosity than wrath.
+His voice was quite controlled.
+
+"And in the alternative?" he asked. "In any case you keep him. What do
+we gain by meeting your terms?"
+
+Landon shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"He has his chance, then, against the World, the Flesh and the Devil
+with the rest of them. I sha'n't pose as a saint before him, but I'll
+see that he behaves himself decently and plays the game. He'll go to
+Eton and Balliol, if he has the sense. I sha'n't send him to
+Sunday-school but he'll attend church on Sundays--once. I'll choose his
+tailor and put him in the way of things. He'll learn, in fact, how to
+conduct himself as an ordinary English gentleman."
+
+Aylmer nodded.
+
+"From whom?" he asked quietly.
+
+And then Landon flinched. The eyes which had been bent on his cousin
+with eagerness, with greed alight in them, quivered. He gave a little
+intake of the breath.
+
+"You cursed prig!" he breathed thickly. "You cursed prig!"
+
+Aylmer smiled.
+
+"You've been out of it too long, Landon," he said. "For over a year I
+suppose your only familiars have been Bowery ruffians or Soho
+blackmailers. Did you think this could be done? Did you really make
+yourself believe that I was likely to be an easy intermediary for such a
+proposition? And I imagine that you forget that it was entirely for your
+wife's sake that your father-in-law dealt gently with you during your
+married life. There's no need for any restraint in that quarter now."
+
+Landon made a gesture of contempt.
+
+"Are you making threats for that old tame cat?" he sneered.
+
+"He's got claws that will reach out to scratch you at the world's end,
+my amiable cousin. They're made of dollars. And they'll be sharpened
+with American grit. Uncommon unpleasant, you'll find them."
+
+Landon snapped his fingers.
+
+"That for his dollars and his grit!" he cried. "It's no good raising
+your bluff on me. I'll see you every time, see you and take it! Leave it
+out; don't waste time over it. Are you going to carry my message to
+them, or are you not?"
+
+"No," said Aylmer. "You knew perfectly well what my answer was going to
+be, but if it's any satisfaction to you to have it--No!"
+
+Landon leaned forward.
+
+"I guessed what your high falutin' ideas would answer," he said, "but
+I'm talking to you--to you about yourself." He pointed to the well-like
+opening above his head. "Do you believe that you could climb out of
+there with a broken collar-bone?" he asked.
+
+Aylmer glanced quickly in the direction of the extended finger.
+
+"Perhaps not," he answered.
+
+Landon nodded.
+
+"You don't know what superhuman exertions a man will contrive when he is
+perishing--of thirst," he said. "But even he couldn't move the slab of
+stone which ten men will drag over that opening, if I bid them. And that
+will be now, if you don't come off your high horse. This isn't a healthy
+place for my friends of the Beni M'Geel. We have to be moving on
+immediately."
+
+A sudden quiver that perhaps was nearly akin to fear pulsed up into
+Aylmer's brain, showed, indeed, in his eyes. The fever of his wound was
+already upon him; his lips were parched, his tongue swollen. To be left
+in that pit--to be sealed in--to die?
+
+Landon grinned.
+
+"Eh?" he questioned. "Are second thoughts best? Do you begin to
+understand?"
+
+For a moment or two the stillness remained unbroken, and in Aylmer's
+gaze there was little still but wonder--wonder that things like Landon
+should continue to exist in this prosy work-a-day world of ours.
+Opportunities for unleashing a real lust of cruelty and evil come to few
+of us. We argue therefore that they do not occur. A common error. A
+glance at the pages of half a dozen reports of philanthropic societies
+will refute it, but we, who are not engaged in social reform, are lost
+in amazement at the monsters when we meet them. It was incredulity which
+was in Aylmer's mind, and incredulity Landon imagined to be
+deliberation.
+
+"There are no two ways to it!" he cried sharply. "Don't think that. It's
+yes or no, now and here!"
+
+Aylmer made a wearily contemptuous gesture.
+
+"Haven't you had your answer?" he said. "It's no; it would be no if I
+had a thousand chances to say it--no--no--no!"
+
+Landon rose. He looked down at the man at his feet malignantly,
+suspiciously. He shouted in Spanish to some unseen listener outside. The
+end of a rope was dropped down through the opening. Methodically Landon
+knotted it about the dead horse's neck and forelegs.
+
+"No, my friend," he said, as if in answer to some unspoken question,
+"you aren't going to exist by munching this dead brute's flesh or
+sucking its blood till help comes, if it comes at all. You are going to
+be left in here with no more company than your own obstinacy, alone."
+
+He shouted again. The rope tautened. Landon seized it, and with a couple
+of energetic jerks swung himself up into the sunshine. And then the
+carcase rose, dragged a little on the floor, and in its turn was hauled
+out of sight. The cellar loomed larger, gloomier, emptier when it was
+gone. There was another dragging sound. Half the light which filtered
+through the opening was eclipsed.
+
+Landon's voice rang hollow in the underground echoes.
+
+"Is it no, still, you fool?" he snarled.
+
+There was no answer.
+
+With a curse, Landon made a significant motion of the hand. The brawny
+Arab shoulders were bent and their thews tightened. The great slab slid
+into its appointed place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+PERINAUD'S NEWS
+
+
+A full mile out in the offing _The Morning Star_ swung at her anchorage,
+dipping and swerving lazily over the incoming rush of the Atlantic
+swell. The dawn-light was soft behind the white bastions of the town's
+sea-wall; the harsh glare of the fully risen sun was yet to come. A
+little boat put out from the shore, zigzagging across the wide lake
+which is bounded on the south by the headland and on the north and west
+by the ring of transports, merchantmen, and cuirasses of the French
+Marine. She tacked and came about at short intervals as if those who
+sailed her had need of haste, or at any rate of the distraction of
+attempting speed even if it could not be attained. She sidled, at last,
+towards the yacht's companion ladder.
+
+Claire Van Arlen rose from her deck chair as the boat's sail dropped.
+She walked towards the taffrail and looked down. She had used her
+binoculars upon the little craft ever since its start from the shore,
+and had finally recognized Daoud. His companion, a uniformed man, whose
+long limbs seemed to occupy the whole of the space between stern and
+stem, had his head swathed in bandages.
+
+Daoud was the first to scramble aboard. He stood before her with bent
+shoulders, the picture of dejection.
+
+She breathed a little quickly.
+
+"Yes?" she asked. "You have brought news--of what?"
+
+The tall man swung himself off the ladder, drew himself upright, and
+saluted.
+
+"Mademoiselle, I am Sergeant Perinaud, attached to the office of the
+military police here. I attended M. Aylmer during our ride in pursuit of
+the man named Landon, who was escaping with certain desert knaves of the
+Beni M'Geel. We overtook them--"
+
+[Illustration: "_Mademoiselle, I am Sergeant Perinaud_"]
+
+She interrupted with an exclamation of delight.
+
+"You have the boy?" she cried. "You recovered him?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"No, Mademoiselle. We were betrayed into an unfortunate ambush. We lost
+five men out of ten in addition to further losses at an earlier date in
+the proceedings. Monsieur le Capitaine has been badly hurt."
+
+He looked at her keenly with a sort of speculative curiosity. And Daoud
+frowned. For there was no sign of commiseration in her glance. She
+showed annoyance, almost disgust.
+
+"You had your hands upon these men and they escaped you?" she cried.
+
+"We were within a very little of arresting them, Mademoiselle, but by an
+Arab trick in which I regret to say they showed more intelligence than
+we were capable of divining, they defeated us. I am directed by Major
+d'Hubert to report to you fully on the incident if you desire it."
+
+She made a vehement gesture.
+
+"If!" she cried. "If!"
+
+With an accession of woodenness in his demeanor, the sergeant drew
+himself up yet more stiffly, repeated his salute, and in a few precise
+words gave the story of the pursuit. But, as he described Aylmer's fall,
+it was to be noted that his voice and bearing relaxed. A tinge of the
+dramatic colored his level tones. His eyes--his hands were called upon
+to emphasize the description of the headlong plunge into the black trap
+of the silo--indicated the feelings of an onlooker rather than a mere
+reporter, as he described the sealing of the prison mouth. And as she
+listened, she gave a little gasp. In the background Daoud flung his
+colleague a little nod of approval.
+
+"And then?" she asked breathlessly. "And then?"
+
+"I was unhorsed, Mademoiselle, and somewhat beaten about the head, as is
+evident. I found shelter in a neighboring patch of mallow, where, after
+a season, I was joined by my friend here. The Beni M'Geel having
+departed, we watched their route as a matter of precaution for a mile or
+two, and then returned. We were unable to deal with the slab upon the
+cellar mouth."
+
+This time his voice had been level enough, but he made his pause
+effective.
+
+She gasped again.
+
+"You left him there?"
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Yes, Mademoiselle, but not without rendering him assistance. Not being
+able to remove the stone, we merely dug another entrance. The outer
+earth was hard and baked, but after pecking off a few inches with our
+knives we fetched water from the river and easily softened it. We
+fashioned a couple of wooden shovels. Thus we dug down into the prison
+in an hour or two. We found the captain delirious."
+
+"Yes?" she said again, eagerly. "You brought him away?"
+
+"Mademoiselle forgets that we had no horses. Daoud remained with him. I
+walked to our nearest outpost--at Ain Djemma--to fetch assistance."
+
+His tones were absolutely matter of fact, but some instinct of
+comprehension made her look at him yet more keenly and thus note the
+weariness which his voice could hide, but not his drawn features.
+
+"You walked, how far?" she questioned.
+
+"I have no exact idea, Mademoiselle. For some hours. I could not obtain
+a surgeon; there was but one at the post and his hands were full. An
+orderly of the ambulance came with me with a _cacolet_ and a small
+escort of Chasseurs. But we have not dared to remove the captain, whose
+fever has reached a serious height. The orderly advised that I should
+come direct to the town and obtain either medical help, or, if possible,
+one of the _Dames de la Croix Rouge_. But there is an epidemic of fever
+at the hospital and an influx of wounded from the Tirailleurs' foray of
+four days back. Neither surgeon nor nurse can be spared for one man."
+
+For a moment there was silence again. Perinaud looked at her with a sort
+of questioning apathy, with the detached air of one having done his duty
+and awaiting the decrees of fate. But Daoud moved restlessly, and then
+broke into speech, as if some irresistible impulse moved him.
+
+"I think my master is likely to die, Mademoiselle," he said.
+
+And then he, too, waited, in a sort of queer, hushed expectancy, as if
+his words must result in some definite action.
+
+"We have medical comforts on board," she said quickly. "We will put
+anything we possess at Captain Aylmer's service."
+
+Perinaud nodded again solemnly.
+
+"The dislocated shoulder has been dealt with, Mademoiselle, and the
+broken bone set. The orderly, also, has quinine for the fever, which is
+high. We might be doing right, perhaps, in taking back any other
+remedies which your intelligence can suggest."
+
+His tone was meditative and judicial, and intimated quite distinctly
+that this was a side issue and not the objective of his present mission.
+He continued to stare at her steadily, without any tinge of offence, but
+with a questioning directness which spoke volumes. "I am waiting," it
+seemed to say. "I have given you your cue. Speak your part."
+
+She looked from him to the Moor, read the same message in the latter's
+air of anticipation, and then spoke, desperately.
+
+"What is it?" she demanded. "You want--something?"
+
+The man looked not exactly embarrassed but disconcerted, surprised. His
+eyebrows rose a fraction, he flashed a swiftly inquiring glance at the
+Moor. The other nodded.
+
+"The captain's fever and delirium is very great, Mademoiselle," he said
+slowly. "We thought--" He hesitated. "The captain, in his wanderings,
+used your name frequently."
+
+She understood in a moment. Aylmer, in his fevered unconsciousness,
+had--what had he done? Placed himself, and her, in a false position?
+These stolid, unimaginative men, at any rate, regarded her as his
+fiancee! She was not eager, vehement, to rush to her lover's side! No
+wonder they showed astonishment.
+
+She stood silent, perturbed, at a loss. And the two impassive faces
+watched her. And again a tiny spasm of fear throbbed through her. Fate
+was fighting for this man, it seemed. Helpless, unconscious, cast away
+in this rat-hole in the wilderness, his plight worked for him where his
+own powers could not. His very helplessness appealed to her. Could she
+refuse the duty which was being plainly forced upon her by the mute
+message of those four watching eyes? Her imagination began to work. She
+saw a gloomy pit, a white face wasted with fever, heard a voice which,
+unconsciously, perhaps, but still appealingly, called upon her name. And
+this was the debonair soldier who had ridden out three days before to
+do--what? Her bidding, no less. A flush rose to her brow.
+
+"I have not a nurse's training," she assured Perinaud quietly, "but I
+will come with you, if you will wait."
+
+The sergeant saluted.
+
+"At Mademoiselle's service," he said placidly, and then turned towards
+his colleague and sighed, a deep suspiration eloquent of relief.
+
+At the door of the saloon she hesitated. She could see her father at his
+desk, bent over his papers, writing methodically. A sudden irritated
+sense of shyness fell upon her. Surely he, too, could not misunderstand.
+
+He looked round at her entrance. Without preamble she repeated the
+sergeant's report, speaking in level, matter of fact tones. She
+announced her decision to return with Perinaud and his escort.
+
+Her father's first comment was no more than his usual deferential little
+nod. But there was a slightly strained silence between them as she
+finished speaking--a silence which gave him time for reflection.
+
+"You think your presence necessary, likely to benefit him?" he said
+questioningly.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"He has been wounded in our service," she said. "These men seem to
+expect much of my nursing--I who have never nursed. I hardly see a way
+to refuse graciously."
+
+Again her father made his little obeisance of assent.
+
+"I could charge myself with an explanation," he said gravely. "There is
+no reason for you to go against your wishes. I fear there is little
+prospect of our being of real help."
+
+Then a sudden throb of protest surged up in her. The vision of the dark
+cellar and of the fevered lips which called constantly upon her name
+became vivid, more vivid than before. To her own amazement she realized
+that she wanted to go, that the thought of those two horsemen riding out
+into the wild with their message of repulse had become abhorrent to her.
+She felt suddenly pitying, protective. The feminine, indeed, the
+maternal, instinct gripped her.
+
+The blood rose to her cheeks.
+
+"I should prefer to go," she said quietly.
+
+Van Arlen made a little gesture of finality.
+
+"The sooner, then, the better," he said, and moved briskly towards his
+own cabin, summoning the steward to his councils as he went.
+
+The dusk was falling over them with grateful coolness as, eight hours
+later, they rode over the brink of the gorge and saw below them the
+black spectral shape of camel's-hair tents and the white dwellings of
+the _duar_. A lantern newly lit twinkled a welcome. A stallion neighed a
+greeting from his pickets as he heard the sound of advancing hoofs, and
+a couple of men in white uniform came to the door of a white-domed hovel
+and stood awaiting them.
+
+One, a dapper, black-moustached little man with the Geneva Cross upon
+his sleeve, hastened to help Miss Van Arlen to alight.
+
+"Monsieur sleeps, Mademoiselle," he informed her, as she reached the
+ground. "It is a matter of temperatures--and the subsequent weakness.
+Mademoiselle may have good hope that matters will yet go well."
+
+His smile was reassuring and, in spite of his obvious youth, almost
+paternal. At the tent door he turned and laid his finger upon his lips.
+There must be no feminine want of self-restraint, he implied. The sight
+of one dear to her in his hour of helplessness must not leave her
+unstrung. She must be brave.
+
+She followed with her father into the shadows within.
+
+He lay with his arms outflung. A light coverlet was over him, but the
+damp of perspiration gleamed upon his forehead and neck. He moved
+restlessly, breathing with a panting sound.
+
+"We poise much on Monsieur's recognition of Mademoiselle when he wakes,"
+explained the orderly, and offered a smirk of intelligent sympathy to
+Mademoiselle's father.
+
+She looked down, and a strange sense of unreality in the situation
+seized her. The white, fever-stricken face on the pillow seemed a
+spectre--a caricature of something familiar. A queer sense of anger, as
+if some well-liked possession had been meddled with and defaced by
+outsiders, rose in her heart. An instinct which she could not explain
+set her kneeling beside the pallet bed, her eyes fixed on its occupant.
+
+Wearily, drowsily, Aylmer opened his eyes.
+
+And then his smile dawned, slowly, incredulously, till the glory of
+assurance had become convincing. He pronounced her name.
+
+In the background, emotional thrills travelled across the orderly's
+foolishly sentimental countenance. He took mental notes of a situation
+which bulked largely and enticingly in a letter to an apple-cheeked
+damsel in far-away Provence a few days later. "Such are the rewards of
+the soldier, my soul," he explained. "Love? Its cords are strong to drag
+its devotees even across this waste wilderness of Africa!" Wherein he
+did one of the most fertile lands upon the habitable globe a vile
+injustice. But your true lover is invariably a poet and girdled with
+merely a poet's limitations, while the apple-cheeked demoiselle's
+romantic sensibilities were quickened to the point of tears.
+
+Mr. Van Arlen moved forward to his daughter's side with a suddenly
+instinctive motion. And she understood it. The embarrassment of the
+situation had at once become plain to him; his desire was to clear it,
+he was framing words--courteous, no doubt, but without any trace of
+sentiment--to assist her in this. He would do it admirably; his tact was
+beyond question.
+
+And she?
+
+Again she felt a sudden thrill of protest. No, how could they deal
+coldly with this man, now? It would be less than womanly--would it even
+be common fair play? He was down. Surely till he was up again, the
+indomitable soldier she knew and feared, honor forbade their striking
+even at his self-assurance.
+
+Her hand was laid upon her father's arm, pressing it in gentle
+remonstrance. Then she leaned towards the bed.
+
+"We have come to thank you," she said quietly. "You have suffered much
+for us, too much."
+
+His smile was fading while she spoke.
+
+"I--I failed," he muttered. "I had my hands upon him, and failed."
+
+"Ah, but you mustn't think us unjust, always," she answered. "What you
+intended--that is what we look at. You have worked for us ceaselessly.
+And now you suffer for us. You must accept our gratitude for that."
+
+He shook his head slowly, and his gaze wandered past her to Van Arlen's
+face.
+
+"It is a check," he said slowly, "but only a check. He is not going to
+win." His eyes grew suddenly clear and his lips grim. "I shall follow
+him to the end," he said.
+
+The orderly moved forward and rearranged the coverlet. He looked
+significantly at a flush which had risen to Aylmer's cheek.
+
+"It is better that Monsieur should not excite himself," he explained
+amiably. "Mademoiselle is here; matters are going well. Monsieur will
+convalesce all the quicker if he avoids emotion."
+
+Aylmer pushed at the rearranged coverlet with a gesture of irritation.
+He drew himself into a sitting posture.
+
+"Don't think that I have flung up the sponge!" he cried. "Before, before
+this weakness came over me I arranged for the future. Daoud has seen to
+that; he has put matters in train. Landon will be watched--if necessary,
+followed. And when I am up again--" he smiled savagely--"when I take the
+trail for the second time, he will pay in full, as I promised he
+should."
+
+And his voice rang firm as he caught sight of the Moor silhouetted
+against the evening light at the tent door.
+
+"That is so?" he demanded. "You have seen to this among your friends?"
+
+Daoud came forward a couple of respectful paces.
+
+"Be assured, Sidi," he said, "that this man will not move a yard but I
+shall have due knowledge of it, in time. He cannot leave North Africa,
+and I be ignorant of it. Our hands may lag, but they will grip him at
+the last."
+
+Aylmer gave a little sigh of satisfaction and lay back. And his eyes
+rose to Van Arlen's half appealingly, half defiantly.
+
+"You see?" he said. "At any rate, I am doing--my best."
+
+The other bowed, but not his automatic, courteous little bow with which
+he punctuated his everyday conversation. There was a moisture in his
+eyes. He leaned forward and took the hand which moved restlessly across
+the coverlet.
+
+"If I had had a son," he said, "he could have done no more. Take my
+thanks, Captain Aylmer, for all that you are and have been; take them in
+full."
+
+Aylmer gave a little nod of content.
+
+"I'll take them," he smiled, "for what I have been to you, and that is
+less than nothing. But for what I am going to be--I'll earn them for
+that, earn them!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+AT MELILLA
+
+
+About the aspect of the port of Melilla there is only one thing wholly
+admirable. That is the curving bay which sweeps eastward from the town
+towards the frontier blockhouse. This last is an eyesore; the untethered
+camels which pasture in herds beside it have little attractiveness; the
+wide plateau which stretches up to the distant hills is desolate and
+often arid. But the bay is a perpetual delight. Curved like a scimitar,
+it shines in the sunlight as a tempered blade shines, ringed by white
+tresses of foam, banked by its parapets of sand.
+
+Two men sat in the shadow cast by a stranded boat and watched half a
+dozen Moors and Spaniards who bent their shoulders and swelled out their
+muscles to haul at a couple of ropes. The ropes slanted down to and were
+lost in the rush of the breakers. Those who dragged at them panted, the
+perspiration raining off their faces. The men who sat and watched seemed
+to find a whet to the enjoyment of their siesta in reviewing so much
+energy. One of them sighed--a contented little sigh, drew a cigarette
+from the breast of his _djelab_, lit it, and began to smoke with stolid
+satisfaction.
+
+A child who was sitting between the two rose suddenly and ran down the
+sand. The men at the ropes had come to a halt. They stood gasping,
+wiping their faces. Impulsively the child laid his little hands upon the
+rope and stood in an attitude of tension, ready to use his tiny
+strength when operations were resumed. The men welcomed him with a
+glance of good-humored toleration.
+
+The cigarette smoker laughed.
+
+"The restlessness of youth, Sidi. Repose? They have no knowledge of the
+meaning of the word, these children. Now I? The last three weeks have
+brimmed with such toil that I could sit here and contentedly drowse a
+week, a month, nay, a whole year, if Allah willed."
+
+The other nodded and stretched his limbs. The movement expressed the
+lethargy which is earned by fatigue.
+
+"To-night we shall eat real food," he murmured. "We shall sleep in beds
+of sorts. We can even be amused, if we find the _cafes chantants_ which
+attract these poor devils of Andalusian conscripts amusing. It's all a
+matter of contrasts--life. After the experiences we have endured among
+our friends the M'Geel, this doghole appears alluring. This!"
+
+He waved his hand with a significant gesture towards the town, in which
+the mean houses appear to hustle the citadel and the citadel the houses,
+without either the one or the other gaining advantage.
+
+The smoker blew out a cloud and spat towards the flagstaff which
+dominates the sea bastion.
+
+"May Allah relegate it and its inhabitants shortly to the Abyss!" he
+aspired devoutly. "Is it permitted to ask how long, Sidi, you purpose
+using its hospitalities?"
+
+"It is always permitted to ask, my friend. The answer is another matter.
+Bluntly, till the Gibraltar boat arrives."
+
+The other lifted his shoulders into a tiny shrug.
+
+"For the Sidi Jan this is a place not to be recommended. There is a
+smell, do you notice, especially at night--murk which rises from the
+fort ditch. And the vermin! His little skin is pitted with them!"
+
+Landon moved irritably. He looked at his son. The men at the ropes were
+hauling again by now, and the small back was bent and the little arms
+tautened with efforts to emulate them. The first few meshes of a laden
+net appeared above the surface of the breakers.
+
+Little John gave a squeal of delight, promptly deserted the toilers, and
+capered joyously down the beach. Scales began to shine silvern in the
+sun as the tangle of the nets rose slowly, but higher and yet higher.
+His voice rose in shrill outcry; he clapped his hands.
+
+As the great bag of the net was hauled little by little up the shelving
+beach, he flung himself into the hurtle round the wriggling catch. The
+mackerel were there in their hundreds--in their thousands. He tripped
+and fell into the center of the heap of fishes, wriggling as they
+wriggled, and to little more purpose.
+
+Muhammed rose, paced slowly forward, and plucked him into safety. But
+the child met his good offices with scorn.
+
+"I wish to help; I wish to gather them up!" he cried petulantly. "I am
+going to be a fisherman. I shall take the yacht to the fishing grounds
+and catch millions--millions!"
+
+"There must be a catching of a yacht first," said Muhammed, amiably.
+"Where wilt thou obtain it, little lord?"
+
+Little John Aylmer turned puzzled eyes up to his questioner. Then he
+wheeled and pointed eastward towards the anchorage below the headland.
+
+"It is there!" he explained. "Did he," he pointed towards his father,
+who still lay comfortably reclined in the shadow of the boat, "not send
+for it?"
+
+Muhammed's eyes followed the direction of the child's hand. He stared,
+gave a sudden startled exclamation, and stared again, incredulously. The
+next moment he was back at his employer's side, twitching excitedly at
+the folds of his bournous.
+
+"Sidi--Sidi!" he exclaimed. "While we drowse we are betrayed. Look!
+Look!"
+
+Landon scrambled to his feet and saw what the timbers of the shadowing
+boat had hidden before. A white vessel, drifting slowly in from the
+headland abreast the market quay. As he watched, a white spout of foam
+and the rattle of the hawse-pipes told that the anchor had been dropped.
+
+She rounded to, the American flag waving lazily from her stern, the
+burgee of the New York Yacht Club from her peak. They could not read her
+name across two miles of water, but they did not need to. It was _The
+Morning Star_.
+
+Landon went white beneath his tan. He swore.
+
+"We have been here three days--three days, by God! Not a soul in the
+place knows me or knows that I am not what I profess to be--a Moor from
+El Dibh. And yet--this! It can't be a coincidence. They know--somehow!"
+
+He looked at Muhammed in sudden fierce suspicion.
+
+"That infernal Jew of yours has sold us!" he cried.
+
+The Moor made a tolerant gesture, the sort of motion a nurse offers a
+wilful child.
+
+"Sidi! You do not understand. A Jew to sell me! Not this side of the
+Mediterranean. It means death! Yakoob knows it; it is knowledge that he
+has sucked in with his mother's milk, chewed with his daily bread, seen
+written in letters of blood in a score of towns between this and
+Mequinez. No, Yakoob Ihudi is not in this business. Some other is the
+instrument of--fate!"
+
+He stooped, lifted little John carefully in his arms, and nodded towards
+the town gate.
+
+"We must use haste, Sidi," he said calmly, avoiding the protests the
+child was making with his closed fists. "Show wisdom, little lord. Why
+do you not wish to return to the town, wherein are special delights for
+the eye in the booths of the market-place?"
+
+Landon hesitated. Then he joined the Moor, running. And the other was
+covering the ground with huge strides which forced his companion to
+continue the run to keep pace with him. He panted out a question.
+
+"My plan, Sidi?" returned the Moor. "It lies in the hands of Allah. Here
+when inquiry begins to be made, we are the mark of a hundred eyes. In
+Yakoob's hovel a means of escape may be found."
+
+The two reached the dusty road which leads from the drill ground,
+followed it into the shadows of the town gate, mounted the steep on
+which the citadel stands, and gained a row of squalid wooden hovels
+which fringed the rampart above the fort ditch. Into one of these they
+disappeared.
+
+A man looked up as they entered, a dark-skinned, low-browed Israelite,
+who greeted them with an obsequiously furtive air. He sat cross-legged
+upon a turned-up chest and plied his needle upon an exceedingly ragged
+pair of trousers. A heap of other garments lay at his elbow. His trade
+was evidently that of mending tailor.
+
+"This deposit for contraband of which you spoke last night?" asked
+Muhammed, without preamble. "Where is it?"
+
+The look of furtive expectancy in the tailor's eyes became active alarm.
+
+"What do you fear?" he asked shrilly. "A search? There are fifteen
+thousand cartridges awaiting transport."
+
+"The search will not be for those, but for these," said the Moor,
+pointing to Landon and his son. "And there is as great a ruin attached
+to the finding of the one as the other. You must prevent that."
+
+The Jew rose quickly and barred the door. With alert movements he
+gathered up the smoking ashes from the hearth and emptied them into a
+shallow pan. He covered his hand with a cloth, seized the pothook which
+hung from the entrance of the chimney, and moved it laboriously aside.
+As he did so the hearthstone moved slowly downwards as if on a hinge. A
+flight of steps led into the darkness.
+
+Muhammed indicated the opening with a shrug.
+
+"The best we can do, Sidi," he deprecated. "Till matters adjust
+themselves you must keep company with Yakoob's contraband."
+
+Landon shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Air?" he questioned laconically. "It is supplied--how?"
+
+Muhammed passed on the question. The Jew pointed to the bosom of his
+bournous, which rose and fell in the draught which rose from below.
+
+"There are innumerable crevices which open through the wall of the fort
+ditch," he said. "For this reason the Sidi must not use a light--at
+night."
+
+Landon shrugged his shoulders pessimistically, and took his son by the
+hand. "Come, my boy," he said. "We are going to play that childhood's
+favorite and most successful comedy--the Robbers in the Cave. You and I
+are to be the leaders of the gang."
+
+Little John peered doubtfully into the darkness.
+
+"And Muhammed?" he asked, looking at the Moor with expectant, trusting
+eyes.
+
+There was a queer intensity in the Moor's glance as he bent over the
+small figure hesitating at the head of the steps. His smile was kindly
+and reassuring.
+
+"I am the robber who goes abroad, prowling to find wicked rich men who
+deserve robbing," he said. "I return shortly, little lord. Have no
+fear."
+
+Little John nodded gravely and took his father's hand. The two paced
+solemnly down into the cellar. The hearthstone was replaced, the cinders
+set smoking upon it again. With a sigh Yakoob took up another deplorable
+pair of trousers and bit off a length of thread. Muhammed passed out
+into the street.
+
+Five minutes later he stood on the quayside, watching the motor launch
+which slid out of the shadow cast on the still waters by _The Morning
+Star_.
+
+Three figures sat upon the cushions at the stern, and Muhammed, as he
+watched them from under the hood of his _haik_, examined one of them
+with startled intensity. Miss Van Arlen he recognized. Aylmer, whose
+face was partially disguised by bandages, he debated over for a moment.
+But this third? This gray-clad elder? This was not the owner of _The
+Morning Star_. It was--whom?
+
+Surprise as much as relief erased the wrinkles from the watcher's face
+as the unknown stepped ashore, turned to assist his companion, and
+disclosed the features of the Moor's former employer, Mr. Miller.
+
+Muhammed emphasized his amazement with an oath. "One God!" he swore, and
+for a moment hesitated. Then, as the gray-clad man strolled past him,
+talking, the Moor pushed back the _haik_ which shadowed his face and met
+the other's glance squarely.
+
+Mr. Miller made no sign.
+
+Muhammed dropped back into the shadow of the quayside booths, and
+sauntered carelessly up the citadel ramp. The three preceded him. At the
+top of the ramp a causeway leads to the drawbridge which spans the fort
+ditch. Mr. Miller had apparently eyes for nothing but his fair
+companion. He failed to notice, at any rate, the dilapidated state of
+the iron rails which fence the bridge. The dust cloak he was carrying
+caught in a jagged piece of iron and was most unfortunately torn. A
+sudden appreciative gleam burned in Muhammed's eyes as he noted the
+incident. The _haik_ hood concealed a smile.
+
+He could not hear, but he could see the expressive pantomime which was
+accompanying Mr. Miller's apologies. He motioned his companions forward
+towards the bridge and the dark entrance through the casemate into the
+citadel. As for himself, his finger explained, he would return to the
+town and get the damage repaired. After a minute's discussion, matters
+followed the course indicated. Aylmer and Miss Van Arlen passed on--to
+seek the government offices, as Muhammed told himself, to interview the
+head, no doubt, of the military police.
+
+The Moor slid forward deferentially as the gray figure turned.
+
+"I can direct the Sidi to a _sastre_ of incredible skill," he explained.
+"The Sidi has no need to return to the town if he desires such an one.
+He is to be found within a hundred paces, if the Sidi so will."
+
+Mr. Miller made an affable gesture of acquiescence.
+
+"You are certainly quick to seize a business opportunity, my friend," he
+said amiably. "Lead on."
+
+Two minutes later the two stood behind Yakoob's well-barred door, and
+the hearthstone had been raised. Landon offered his visitor a tribute of
+surprise tinged with humor.
+
+"I understood, my friend," he said, as he took the other's hand, "that
+the mail came in from Gibraltar to-morrow. For you, it seems, the age of
+miracles is not past?"
+
+"I hope I am an alert servant of opportunity," said Miller. "I got your
+letter yesterday morning."
+
+"That does not entirely explain your presence in Melilla to-day."
+
+Miller nodded.
+
+"Your father-in-law has been anchored in Gibraltar Bay for the last
+fortnight. He has had information of your movements, my friend--good
+information, and I have not been able to determine the source of it. I
+made it my business to get introduced to him at the house of mutual
+friends. A humble client of mine, a ship's chandler, acquainted me with
+the fact that _The Morning Star's_ anchor and steam were being raised,
+and with the name of her port of destination. A couple of good boatmen
+and a little tact did the rest. I told Mr. Van Arlen that I had an
+urgent business necessity to visit these possessions of the King of
+Spain. Result--a warm invitation to anticipate the mail boat by a day."
+
+"Excellent!" commended Landon. "And the business necessity? You have
+brought the means of relieving it?"
+
+Mr. Miller dilated his nostrils. Perhaps the reek of the fort ditch
+reached him. Very carefully and methodically he lit a cigarette.
+
+"Yes--and no," he answered at last, and with deliberation. "I have money
+with me, my dear Lord Landon. But my employers give me no commission to
+apply it to--charity."
+
+Landon's eyes grew suddenly ominous.
+
+"The price of that book was to be five hundred pounds," he said. "I have
+received one hundred so far."
+
+Miller made a gesture of assent.
+
+"You obtained for me a certain book. Subsequent investigations proved it
+to be a mere dummy--a book made, in fact, to be stolen. You remain in my
+debt to the extent of that score of five-pound notes which I gave you."
+
+Landon laughed a dry little laugh.
+
+"Then I concede that I shall remain in your debt--permanently. The
+bungling is yours, not mine. I demand the balance of my fee. For
+suppose, my dear Miller, that I gave your game in Gibraltar away?"
+
+"Suppose you did," said Miller, placidly. "It would be a question of
+your word against mine, would it not?"
+
+There was nothing sneering in his tone, but its bald self-assurance
+seemed to whip Landon's temper into fury. He swore wickedly.
+
+Miller watched him as the weasel might be expected to watch the trapped
+rat. And the dark, unpleasant little room had, indeed, many of the
+attributes of a cage.
+
+And then there was an energetic gesture from the gray-clad arm.
+
+"You bungled the matter--not in stealing the wrong book," said Miller,
+"but in the manner of your escape. It was then that you lost your value
+to my employers. You are liable to be arrested in any of the British
+dominions. Till that matter is settled, you are a weapon without an
+edge, for us. That error must be repaired."
+
+Landon stared up at him curiously.
+
+"How?" he asked.
+
+Miller made a significant gesture towards the child. There was no
+intention of menace in it, but the child shrank back, turning, not
+towards his father, but with a sudden instinctive outstretching of his
+hand to Muhammed. The Moor grasped the little fingers silently and
+smiled--a smile which faded as he turned his keen, watchful eyes again
+upon the visitor.
+
+"You must renounce your detention of your son," said Miller. "You must
+bargain with his grandfather. Your price must be a certain competency,
+if you will, but above all the right to return unquestioned into your
+proper place in society. In this way alone can you continue to be of
+use--to me."
+
+There was a silence. Landon, still a-squat upon the floor, his elbow on
+his knee, the heel of his fist supporting his hand, stared up at his
+mentor with impassive eyes. In the shadow on his right Muhammed stood,
+still holding the child's hand, his glance hovering over Miller with a
+speculation which was almost distrust. Behind him the tailor stitched
+apathetically at his dilapidated wares.
+
+Suddenly Landon turned to the Moor.
+
+"You have heard?" he questioned sharply.
+
+"I have heard, oh, Sidi."
+
+"And understood?"
+
+The man hesitated.
+
+"There is a purpose of surrendering the Sidi Jan?" he murmured, and his
+voice conveyed not so much protest as incredulity.
+
+Landon nodded.
+
+"This month of toil, all our leagues of weariness and pain among the men
+of the M'Geel are things lost, then," went on the Moor impassively. "An
+order has come and we must leap to obey it. The Sidi Jan, too? His voice
+is not to be heard in the matter." He shrugged his shoulders
+apathetically. "Only a child," he added, and touched the golden curls
+with a caressing hand. "Only a bale of merchandise, a thing to be bought
+and sold."
+
+Miller turned and looked at him keenly. The Moor met the glance with a
+droop of the head which spoke eloquently of submission. But a queer
+smile began to harden Landon's lips. He rose slowly to his feet.
+
+"A bale of merchandise," he repeated slowly. "And, as I am reminded, we
+toiled to bring it uninjured across the wilds of the Beni M'Geel. Will
+that be reckoned in the value of it?" he asked, and wheeled suddenly
+towards Miller with a savage, cat-like motion. "Will they pay me for my
+sweat and thirst and pain?"
+
+The gray man was silent for a moment. There was something electric in
+the atmosphere, something menacing, something--and this was perhaps what
+his machine-like mind shrank from most--something human and passionate.
+These were not among the goods which Mr. Miller sought to purchase.
+
+"You will do your own bargaining," he said, in a level, dispassionate
+tone. "But the child must be delivered. The price? There you are master
+of your own affairs."
+
+For the second time Landon's eyes dwelled on Muhammed's face.
+
+"I shall answer him--how?" he asked quietly.
+
+"Thus!" said the Moor, and flung his arms round Miller's elbows and
+smothered his lips upon his breast, while Landon, laughing a queer,
+excited laugh, snatched up a garment from the dismal heap on the floor,
+tore off a liberal patch, and deftly wound it in gag-wise between the
+prisoner's teeth. Shackled with ragged waist-cloths at ankle and wrist,
+the gray figure was lowered down the steps into the darkness. Muhammed
+spoke rapidly and incisively for the space of a minute to the Jew, who
+listened in impassive silence. Then, with a last commanding gesture, the
+Moor opened the door and went out again alone into the swiftly falling
+dusk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+MUHAMMED SCORES TWICE
+
+
+Muhammed's steps were bent away from the town towards the row of
+dilapidated hovels which fringe the bank of sand below the nearer
+blockhouse. And he walked quickly; there was definite purpose and no
+sign of hesitation in his stride. He came to a halt before a dwelling,
+half burrow, half barn, round the entrance of which were clustered half
+a dozen ragged figures.
+
+The Moor's face was dark in the shadow of his _haik_ hood, but he
+appeared to need no introduction. He raised a finger and beckoned. One
+of the lounging figures rose grudgingly and drew aside with him.
+
+"I have it from Yakoob, Signor Luigi, that you leave to-morrow. That
+must be altered. It may be necessary to make a start to-night."
+
+The other raised a dark Italian face towards the Moor and eyed him
+questioningly. He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I have no charter from Yakoob," he said. "I return home to Salicudi--to
+await the sponge-fishing season. I need a holiday; this contraband
+running frets the nerves, do you see? I wish to forget the need of
+having eyes--and a telescope--at the back of one's head."
+
+For a moment Muhammed was silent, debating, as it seemed, something in
+which memory or experience gave him no assistance.
+
+"Salicudi?" he questioned.
+
+"In the Lipari group," said the other, laconically. "My home."
+
+"An island?" said the Moor. "And your home? What is it? A house--a
+hut--a castle? Give me particulars. My chiefest need would be privacy.
+Can you guarantee it?"
+
+The Italian pondered.
+
+"You flee from--what?" he demanded.
+
+"From a curiosity which still seems to dog my footsteps," said the Moor,
+drily. "Let it be sufficient for you to know that with three friends I
+desire to vanish from Melilla to-night. We might find it convenient to
+remain temporarily on Salicudi. It depends on your neighbors' thirst for
+information and your capabilities of defeating it."
+
+Signor Luigi gave an expressive and contemptuous wave of the hand.
+
+"On Salicudi are six families--cousins of mine, all of them. I and my
+brother Sandro alone possess boats or money. The others work for us and
+are fed. We do not encourage them to think; they do not tire their
+magnificent brains except under our direction."
+
+Muhammed nodded appreciatively.
+
+"The priest?" he suggested.
+
+"Father Sigismondi serves six islands besides mine," said the smuggler.
+"He visits us by favor of my boat, when Christian offices are in special
+demand. It is a matter I regulate myself."
+
+"Carabineers, tax collectors?"
+
+"Of the former, none; we have leave to cut our own throats. Of the
+latter, one yearly. He is due in about eight months' time."
+
+"Food?"
+
+"Polenta--fish--beans; at times of _festa_ a _risotto_ of kid. We have
+goats, and therefore milk."
+
+The Moor nodded.
+
+"I am empowered to offer you for your hospitality for myself and friends
+twenty _lire_ per head per week during our stay on your boat or island,"
+he said slowly.
+
+Luigi scratched his head.
+
+"One hundred _lire_ for the lot?" he temporized. "You have appetites,
+you Moors; that is notorious."
+
+"We have appetites--for food," agreed Muhammed. "The bill of fare you
+quote contains little that would be dignified as such in my way of
+thinking. You will take eighty _lire_ per week, or lose this trade of
+Yakoob's. Choose quickly."
+
+For the second time the Italian's shoulders rose in a shrug.
+
+"What you will," he said apathetically. "You hold a pistol to my head."
+
+"Try to remember that it remains always loaded," replied the other, and
+turned briskly towards the port. "You had better see to your
+arrangements instantly."
+
+He passed across the sand towards the dirty little Marina which fronts
+the shipping offices and ship-chandlers' booths, leaving his companion
+staring after him with a frown. Then, for the third time, Signor Luigi
+shrugged his shoulders and followed, to enter finally a ship's dingy
+which was tied to the Marina steps. In this he gained a large
+lateen-rigged boat which swung at her moorings in the bay.
+
+The motor launch floated idly on the ripples at the landing stage
+immediately below the citadel. The engineer had come ashore and sat on a
+bench beneath the tarpaulin which had been roughly erected to protect
+some perishable government stores. In the shadow of the Marina booths,
+Muhammed halted and looked thoughtfully at the man and then at the
+launch and finally at the setting sun. The birth of a new and up-lifting
+emotion could be seen working in his expressive eyes.
+
+"Bismillah!" he exclaimed softly. "The one! Why not the three!"
+
+He drew himself up; a deep breath escaped him. He slipped around the
+back of the line of booths and reappeared coming as from the citadel.
+And he had the aspect of haste and importance.
+
+He walked straight up to the waiting engineer.
+
+"I bring an order that you do not await your mistress but return for her
+in three hours' time," he said in excellent English.
+
+The man looked up in stolid surprise.
+
+"Eh?" he questioned.
+
+"Your mistress has accepted an invitation to dine with the governor,"
+said Muhammed. "You are to return for her at ten o'clock."
+
+The man got up and shook himself lazily as he strolled towards the
+launch.
+
+"Nice hospitable old cock--what?" he hazarded. "Didn't send me down a
+small bottle of beer and a sandwich, now did he?"
+
+Muhammed shook his head. The man grunted pessimistically, gave a surly
+little nod, and sat down behind the launch's steering wheel. A moment
+later he was grooving a white trail of foam out into the bay.
+
+Muhammed sighed--a sigh which expressed relief, content, and the
+expansion of a hitherto unleashed excitement. He turned and ran rapidly
+back along the shore. A second visit to the hovels below the blockhouse
+resulted in a conference with another of their deplorably clad
+inhabitants. A taciturn fellow this, of apparently Spanish extraction.
+But the fact that he wore the remains of an extremely dissolute _haik_
+over a pair of remarkably tattered frieze trousers hinted at a
+cosmopolitanism which was buttressed by his speech. He used the _lingua
+franca_ and moved amid an almost palpable reek of garlic.
+
+After the exchange of a few rapid sentences, he relapsed into silence
+but not into inactivity. He paced solemnly down the sand and motioned
+the Moor to help in the launching of a boat. In it they pulled round the
+sweep of the bay into the inner port and moored themselves in the
+berthing which the motor launch had vacated.
+
+The dusk had now become darkness. Lights shone in the booths; the
+distressing clangor of a gramophone sounded from one _albergar_, the
+thrumming of a mandolin from another. There was a clink of spurs as half
+a score of artillerymen clattered down the citadel ramp, eager for the
+squalid debaucheries of the port. A _guardia civile_ sauntered along the
+quayside edge and looked down into the waiting boat.
+
+"Profitable evil-doing is surely at a low ebb when I find El Avispa
+trying to make an honest penny," he meditated.
+
+Muhammed's companion turned.
+
+"Why do you term me The Wasp, Senor?" he asked with a grin of
+complacence. "Have I been known to sting?"
+
+The _guardia_ made a jerky motion of his thumb in the direction of the
+great convict establishment upon the hill.
+
+"I don't know, _amigo_. Your exploits are scheduled up there; have a
+care that I do not need to refer to them. Whom do you await?"
+
+"The Senor and the Senora who landed from the yacht," said the boatmen.
+"They visit the Senor Intendente."
+
+The _guardia_ looked doubtful.
+
+"They landed from a boat, a motor boat," he objected.
+
+"Precisely," agreed the other. "It appears that something affected the
+engine of this, some leak of the jacketing which I do not understand,
+but which I am informed cools the cylinders. The engineer returned while
+he could, enlisting my services to await and explain matters to his
+employer."
+
+"Humph!" grunted the uniformed man. "His choice showed little
+discretion. See to it that you do not disgrace your opportunity. That
+seat is bespattered with fish-oil and scales. Wipe it!" He made a
+commanding gesture towards the offending stain, and walked majestically
+away.
+
+At the far end of the Plaza he was seen to halt and observe two
+newcomers, who appeared leisurely descending the citadel ramp. A
+gold-braided official was in attendance on them, and his gestures were
+rapid and deferential. The _guardia civile_ saluted and spoke. Muhammed,
+watching keenly, gave another sigh. Fate was on his side. The very
+guardians of law and order were unconsciously buttressing his plan. This
+officious _guardia civile_ was already explaining the situation to Miss
+Van Arlen and her companion. The onus of explanation--and possible
+suspicion--was thus being lifted from shoulders possibly less capable
+of bearing it. He muttered his satisfaction in a hurried undertone.
+
+The girl and Aylmer advanced towards the quayside, the gesticulating
+official still in attendance. The latter eyed the waiting boat
+disdainfully.
+
+"Let me demonstrate, Senora," he cried, "that our port can supply
+something less deplorable in the way of shore boats. Let me summon a
+pinnace and crew from the naval arsenal."
+
+Muhammed's heart stood still. But fate smiled on him yet.
+
+Miss Van Arlen protested that the boat would do well enough, that it was
+hardly fair to have kept this man waiting by the instructions of her own
+engineer, as it appeared, and then refuse to engage him. With a smile
+and bow of farewell she took her seat in the stern, while the _guardia
+civile_ muttered stern instructions to the rowers anent their duty. They
+received them in stolid silence. Aylmer took the yoke lines, and amid a
+renewed demonstration of respect from the men of gold braid, the boat
+shot out into the darkness.
+
+A slight mist hung over the water, but the riding lights of the yacht
+were plain enough and Aylmer headed directly for them. He leaned forward
+and asked a question of the man who pulled stroke oar.
+
+"The Senor who came ashore with us?" he queried. "Did you mark him? Did
+he return in the motor boat?"
+
+The man shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I did not see it," he said laconically. "Have the goodness to steer
+well to the right. Your present course will foul a line of net buoys."
+
+Aylmer pulled the line and swerved as directed. And then Claire spoke,
+with a hint of something in her voice which was nearly akin to
+suspicion without exactly attaining it.
+
+"Mr. Miller frankly puzzles me," she said.
+
+Aylmer gave a little nod in the darkness.
+
+"Yes," he agreed. "There is a sense of--of estrangement about him. He is
+good company, a _mondain_, intelligent, but not--human. One feels that
+at every turn."
+
+The girl made a gesture towards the shore.
+
+"What can he have to do in that--that ash heap?" she asked. "A man who
+poses as a _flaneur_, a _dilettante_."
+
+"Pottery?" suggested Aylmer. "He collects; I have seen his collections.
+They are sound and in good taste, without being remarkable."
+
+"That is what I think," she acquiesced. "For the life-work of a man they
+are petty. It is mysterious; he is mysterious! Why did he not rejoin us
+this evening at the governor's office as he promised?"
+
+Aylmer smiled.
+
+"The ardors of the chase," he hazarded. "He is probably sitting in the
+sanctum of some Jew huckster, chaffering for the least worn of a
+collection of Rabat rugs or old Mequinez steel-work. He will come on
+board to-morrow to explain and bid us farewell, and we shall hear all
+about it."
+
+"About what?" asked the girl enigmatically.
+
+Aylmer smiled again.
+
+"About--what he chooses to tell us," he answered, and jerked the
+yoke-line energetically, as a couple of oval dark objects loomed up on
+the surface just ahead.
+
+There was a swish and a dragging sound, and the dark objects disclosed
+themselves alongside as net buoys. They hung below the gunwale
+persistently; the boat was obviously brought to a standstill.
+
+"In spite of my warning the Senor has fouled the fishing nets," growled
+the boatman.
+
+"On the contrary," retorted Aylmer, "your directions carried us straight
+into them. A direct course would have avoided this."
+
+The man shipped his oar and stood up.
+
+"The Senor will permit me to pass him?" he said. "The rudder itself must
+be unshipped to clear us."
+
+Aylmer shifted his seat to one side as the man leaned over him. The next
+instant he had cried out--a choking cry, smothered under the folds of
+the sail which the man had heaped bodily upon his head. His hands were
+grasped and drawn together in the loop of a rope. Lashings were knitted
+about his limbs with almost miraculous rapidity. Stark and inert, he
+felt himself rolled into the bottom of the boat, his rage and horror
+almost suffocating him as he heard the quickly stifled cry which told
+him that his companion was suffering like treatment. And then, for half
+a minute, the rapid rumble of the rowlocks was evidence that the boat
+was being furiously rowed--whither he could not guess.
+
+There was a shock of wood meeting wood. They had run alongside another
+vessel, or possibly the piles of a landing place. Whispered voices
+joined those of their captors.
+
+He felt himself lifted, borne staggeringly forward a few paces and then
+lowered into arms which gripped him from below. There was the creak of
+reluctant hinges. He was placed not ungently upon a floor of planking.
+The voices whispered again, something was laid beside him, touching him.
+The hinges grated, footsteps passed over a floor or deck above his head.
+And then there was silence.
+
+But out in the bay a few minutes later, the decent stillness of the
+night was torn into tatters of uproar. The voice of the Spanish boatman
+was uplifted in appeals for help to every listening saint in Paradise,
+and to every inhabitant of the Melilla's citadel and port. The sounds
+reached, as they were meant to reach, the quay. Every guardroom was
+emptied; the roisterers surged into the street from a dozen _albergars_
+and _cervecerias_. Half a score of boats put out into the night, one
+manned by the naval police leading.
+
+Lament guiding them, within five minutes they reached a point where El
+Avispa clung disconsolately to the keel of his upturned boat, bewailing
+the day of a birth which had developed for him into a life of
+unremitting sorrow. He was dragged into the police boat and ordered to
+explain himself.
+
+It was the fault of the foreign Senor, he deposed. Justice to himself
+compelled him to admit that, though he had every regard for the
+reputation of a cavalier who was now without doubt drowned fathoms deep
+below the very spot on which the rescuing pinnace swam. Being careless,
+or perchance engrossed by the attractions of the Senora who was for
+beauty a very swan, the amateur steersman had precipitated them among
+the mackerel nets. The rudder was fouled. He, Ignacio Baril, sometimes
+called El Avispa, had stood up to pass to the stern and release it. The
+Senora, with entrancing but unfortunate timidity, had risen in her turn,
+and the Senor, gesticulating in argument, had consummated the disaster.
+He had leaned sideways, lost his balance, and caused the boat to lurch
+completely over.
+
+Yes, he himself had put forth the efforts of a Hercules to save, at
+least, the woman. In deference to the memory of his mother, who was
+already among the Saints after a lifetime of charity and benevolence, he
+must bear witness to the fact that her son met this crisis with energy.
+How was he defeated? The truth must out; again it was the foreign
+cavalier. In his panic he had clutched and drawn back from the brink of
+safety the Senora--alas! to perdition. The would-be rescuer had desisted
+from his efforts only when his overtaxed lungs failed him. In a state of
+semi-unconsciousness, Providence had guided his aimless hand to reach
+and rest upon the keel of his overturned boat. He had been saved, it was
+very true, but it was a question if death itself was not to be
+poignantly preferred to safety coupled with such a burden of grief. His
+days must be clouded to his life's end.
+
+And thereupon the bay echoed with the shouts of a hundred searchers and
+the waters glittered in carnival gaiety below the glare of their lights.
+A couple of hours later one of them halted, as if to rest the rowers, in
+the shadow of the felucca _Santa Margarita_. From her bows a long,
+cord-lashed package was silently lifted on the larger vessel's deck,
+while three figures scrambled hastily over the gunwale and crept below.
+Then laboriously the clumsy anchor was hauled home, the broad sail
+spread to the western breeze, and Signor Luigi steered a straight course
+into the bosom of the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE SANTA MARGARITA'S LAZARET
+
+
+The torment of his tightly lashed limbs, the irk of the gag between his
+teeth, want of air, hunger, thirst--these had all done their work upon
+Aylmer and, as the hours went by, produced a partial unconsciousness. It
+was not sleep which overpowered him; it was a thing less merciful than
+that. A numbness had seized both his limbs and his brain. He no longer
+felt the cutting pressure of his bonds; he scarcely realized where his
+powerlessness lay. Effort was paralyzed, that was all he understood. It
+was a nightmare; his brain refused to confront reasons; he was sensitive
+only to effects. Thus it was with a shock as if sensibility itself was
+only then returning that he heard the grating sound of hinges, was
+conscious of a gleam of light in the hitherto persistent darkness, felt
+fingers busy at his lips. The gag fell from between them.
+
+With the powers of speech his own again, his senses used them
+instinctively for primitive needs.
+
+"Water!" he muttered hoarsely. "Water!"
+
+"With pleasure, my dear cousin!" said a familiar voice. "Water, food,
+and even, under restrictions, a little liberty. Has that programme
+attractions? Surely--after what, I fear, has been a monotonous night."
+
+It was Landon who held a guttering lamp in his hand and looked down at
+them complacently--Landon, debonair, smiling, triumphant.
+
+Aylmer's eyes searched past him after the first glance of surprise.
+Touching his feet lay Miss Van Arlen, bound as he had been bound, the
+mark of the gag still grooving her lips and cheek. Beyond her, propped
+against a bulkhead at the end of the narrow oblong lazaret in which they
+all lay, was another figure. Aylmer blinked and frowned in his surprise.
+The face was unfamiliarly pale; the usually apathetic eyes dark with
+repressed emotion. But they both undoubtedly belonged to--Mr. Miller.
+
+This, then, was the meaning of the opening of their prison door for the
+second time the previous evening; this was the addition to their cargo
+which darkness had concealed from him.
+
+Landon gave a pleasant little laugh.
+
+"An unexpected reunion, is it not?" he suggested. "I have unavoidably
+deprived you of a few luxuries, my dear Miller, but have supplied what
+is far more important--true friends."
+
+For a moment the other was silent; his glance reviewed his surroundings
+with careful intensity; he seemed to prime himself with all available
+information before he dealt with a situation which found him moved,
+indeed, but not by useless loss of temper.
+
+"You will probably pay for this--highly," he said in his usual level
+tones. "I do not know precisely what you expect to gain, my dear Landon,
+but believe me the price of this exploit will be more than you can
+afford."
+
+Landon made a gesture of protest.
+
+"There will be a price; you are quick to jump to these conclusions," he
+agreed. "But I, dear friend, am the payee."
+
+He nodded, favoring each of them with a glance in turn.
+
+"Yes," he said. "That is the situation; please understand it. I am
+dictating terms, I. I am no longer the hunted, but the hunter. I have
+many debits in my mental ledger. I propose to collect them once and for
+all, in full."
+
+The three regarded him without speaking, and he laughed again, amiably.
+
+"Sister-in-law," he said, "your sex requires my first apologies. You
+must blame the wind, not me, for the discomforts of the night. While we
+remained within earshot of the land or of passing ships, your silence
+was overwhelmingly desirable. This applied to all three of you, and the
+contumacious wind forbore to rise. But the breeze of the last hour has
+given us an offing which frees you of all disabilities. Your bonds, to
+commence with."
+
+He stooped and rapidly unlashed her wrists and ankles. He put out a hand
+to draw her to her feet.
+
+With an uncontrollable gesture of repulsion, she waved it away and rose
+unsteadily, clinging to the bulkhead. She faced him.
+
+"Have you never asked yourself what the end will be, the end of all
+this?" she said suddenly, fiercely. "You win a trick here and there; you
+reckon up the points; you mock your adversaries. Do you never give a
+thought to what the price, the ultimate price, must be?"
+
+He looked at her--a look that held some curiosity--a tinge, indeed, of
+admiration.
+
+"You are a little unexpected, my dear Claire," he answered. "Does not
+the more material question of food and drink engross you? Do you really
+wish to discuss abstractions?"
+
+She gave a hopeless little shrug of her shoulder.
+
+"It is because you are wholly evil, wholly, that you puzzle me. And yet
+you are not unintelligent; you must know, mere experience must teach
+you, there is a price to be paid!"
+
+"Certainly." Landon laughed again, a mocking laugh. "I sketched it in
+outline to your--your lover--may I have the felicity of calling him
+that?--when I enjoyed his company in the silo on the road to El Dibh."
+
+The color flamed to her cheek.
+
+"You are insolent!" she said, and again Landon laughed.
+
+"Or merely premature?" he asked gaily. "After all, for the moment
+hospitality must engross me and nothing else." He turned and beckoned to
+some one unseen. He received a basket.
+
+"Bread, cheese, wine," he explained. "Will you help yourself while I
+assist my other guests? Or, if they choose, they may assist themselves.
+But I must have your words, my friends, that you will not attempt
+violence or escape if I release your hands."
+
+The two prisoners exchanged glances. Then Miller held out his fettered
+wrists.
+
+"As you will," he said quietly. "Temporarily I give you my parole. I
+retain the right to withdraw it."
+
+Landon nodded and looked at his cousin.
+
+"And you?" he asked.
+
+Aylmer met the look squarely.
+
+"No, to you I will be beholden for nothing," he answered. "I give no
+word; I keep my independence."
+
+Landon shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"You only inconvenience yourself," he said indifferently. "Well, my
+Quixote, stay here then, in the dark, shackled, and alone."
+
+He held back the door, motioning the others into the outer cabin. Miss
+Van Arlen stood still, leaning against the bulkhead.
+
+Landon made another gesture towards the door. "Ladies first," he smiled.
+"While we play at pirates, let us maintain the high standard of
+piratical courtesy."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I prefer to stay," she said quietly.
+
+Landon's surprise escaped in an exclamation. And then he laughed--an
+evil, sneering laugh, which brimmed with insolence and suggestion.
+
+"You--prefer--to stay?" he repeated, and looked from her to the man who
+lay at his feet. "Was my chance shot so far from the target?" he asked.
+"You will stay with--whom? Not a lover?"
+
+Her eyes were stormy, but her voice was restrained.
+
+"Even your insolence does not turn me from my duty," she answered.
+"Captain Aylmer has served, and is suffering for, me and mine."
+
+She turned her eyes from his as she spoke and, as if some power outside
+herself compelled her, let them meet the glance which Aylmer flung at
+her from the level of the floor. Through a pregnant moment she read its
+message--surprise, incredulity, and then hope. These lit fires in it one
+by one, but the last eclipsed all other gleams, and remained.
+
+He spoke.
+
+"Thank you," he said simply. "But I am not here to add to your
+hardships. I cannot accept the sacrifice."
+
+"The decision is with me," she said quietly, but with determination. "It
+is settled. I remain here, with Captain Aylmer."
+
+Landon was still smiling.
+
+"It has its unconventional side, this decision of yours," he said. "I
+must remind you of that."
+
+"You need remind me of nothing," she answered. "I stay; that is all."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Not quite all," he objected. "I must, of course, have a promise from
+you that you will not interfere with Captain Aylmer's bonds in any way."
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Very well," she said laconically. "I promise."
+
+Still Landon hesitated, his hand upon the door.
+
+"And you?" he said suddenly, looking at his cousin. "You shall give me
+your word not to let her touch you."
+
+Aylmer's eyes sparkled with rage.
+
+"Have you not got her word, you _dog_!" he answered, and there was an
+intonation on the last syllable which seemed to sting even Landon's
+imperturbability. For he made a threatening step forward.
+
+"By God, I'll show you where you are!" he cried. "You dare to give me
+your impudence, here?"
+
+He stood looking down, his breath coming pantingly. His cheeks had
+become curiously patched; he gasped.
+
+Miller's even voice broke across the tension.
+
+"Captain Aylmer refuses any relaxations," he said urbanely. "Why not
+accept the fact?"
+
+Landon swung round.
+
+"Do you think I daren't?" he cried menacingly. "Do you think I daren't
+go the whole hog? If I swing him overboard, who's to tell? By the Lord,
+I've a mind for it--and to make myself safe with the rest of you, too.
+I've a mind, a very good mind, to rid myself of the lot of you!"
+
+"And live afterwards--on what?" replied Miller very quietly.
+
+There was silence, more than a moment of it. Landon's fingers sought and
+found purchase upon the wood partition. His glance dwelled upon Miller,
+debatingly. Slowly the flush died from his cheek.
+
+And then he laughed again, harshly, unmirthfully, even apologetically,
+so it seemed, but as if the apology were to himself. He motioned Miller
+to the door. He laid the basket upon the floor.
+
+"Make the most of it," he said. He hesitated. "And don't count on my--my
+good-humor--again." Without a backward look, he placed the lantern on
+the table and banged the door.
+
+Claire made no comment; her whole desire was to dull all sense of
+emotion from the situation. She laid her hand upon the basket; she drew
+out a bottle of wine; she found a tin cup and filled it. She did it all
+with matter-of-factness; she did not spare a glance towards the floor.
+
+And then she knelt beside him, put her arm behind his back, helped him
+to shuffle into an uneasy leaning posture against the bulkhead. She
+brought him the cup.
+
+He shook his head in protest.
+
+"After you," he said determinedly.
+
+Her lips moved to speech, and then she stayed herself. After all was not
+stolid acquiescence best; did not that kill sentiment, and was not
+sentiment the one thing to be dreaded in this situation? She lifted her
+shoulders in an indifferent little shrug and then she drank. He watched
+her quietly. She refilled the cup and held it to his lips. He moved his
+chin in a queer, cramped little nod of acknowledgment and drank in his
+turn. And there was a hint of reluctance in the little sigh with which
+he relinquished the emptied cup.
+
+She refilled it and held it for him again, anticipating his protests
+with the declaration that she herself would have no more, disliked it,
+wished, rather, for food. And so she watched him drink for the second
+time, slowly, swallowing tiny mouthfuls, dwelling on it. A queer sense
+of unreality gripped her as she did so. It was as if she waited on and
+tolerated the foibles of a child. A hundred times she had done as much
+or more for her small nephew, but without this protective sense in the
+doing of it. She realized the fact with a sort of self-inquisition. It
+pleased her to see this man where her help was essential to him. Some
+instinct of the same kind had been awake in her as she nursed and
+watched over him at the silo, but it had died or slept in the
+intervening weeks of ordinary converse at Gibraltar and on the yacht. It
+woke again now; and it had grown unwatched. Why, she asked herself. Why?
+
+And then came the question of food. The basket contained no accessories,
+merely the bare essentials. She had to break the bread and divide the
+cheese with her fingers, bit by bit. And bit by bit she had to place
+each portion between his teeth. She shrank, or she told herself that it
+was shrinking, as her hand brushed his moustache, but was there anything
+truly repellent in this suddenly intimate action? Again self-inquisition
+denied it. Pleasure was in the sensation, not pain.
+
+She rose, at last, when the contents of the basket were finished, and
+placed it on the table. Returning she flicked the crumbs from his
+shoulder and then, with a little sigh, sat down. He looked at her
+gravely, but with a gravity which tells of emotion restrained.
+
+"Thank you again," he said. "Thank you for everything, but--why?"
+
+She gave a little start. Was not this the question that her inner self
+had been dinning in her ears for half an hour? She was humbling herself,
+sacrificing herself even, in the eyes of such as Landon, lowering
+herself to serve this man. Why?
+
+And as she debated she avoided his gaze lest he should read indecision
+in her glance. And yet the answer should have been glib on her lips; she
+had, indeed, already given it to Landon. Duty to a servant suffering in
+her service. But was that all?
+
+"Did you expect me to choose the company of your cousin?" she asked
+slowly. "The very sight of him revolts me. I cannot stand it!"
+
+"You spared me a little of that distaste, at our first meeting," he
+said, and there was the glint of a queer smile beneath his moustache.
+"Have I lived that down?"
+
+"I know now that you are a gentleman," she said simply. "I realize, too,
+that Landon is--is monstrous, wickedness incarnate, beyond the reach of
+human feeling, completely vile. I think," she hesitated, "I think he
+must have concentrated within himself every evil influence that has
+fallen upon his family, to leave you--" again she faltered, as if she
+struggled with a compelling power, not as if a word or phrase escaped
+her--"to leave you--_stainless_," she sighed with an inflection that
+seemed to tell of something reluctant in the effort.
+
+For a moment he was silent. Then the color flamed to his face; the light
+of incredulity woke in his eyes.
+
+"Then I start now with every handicap cleared away?" he asked quickly.
+"You see me--as other men?"
+
+She turned and looked at him. She smiled a little wearily.
+
+"No," she said quietly. "Not as other men."
+
+He drew a deep breath.
+
+"Claire," he said very quietly, "a month ago I came first into your
+life. Fate brought me to you, to earn, and then to resent, your
+unexplained hatred. When I understood it, I swore to myself that I would
+make you--just. That, then, is a task accomplished."
+
+Was this sudden intimate use of her Christian name unconscious or was it
+premeditated? She made no comment; she only bowed her assent.
+
+"That was no personal decision," went on Aylmer. "I did it as a duty--to
+all who bore my name. The personal factor came afterwards, but so soon
+afterwards that I can scarcely tell you when the one merged in the
+other. I loved you; did you understand that?"
+
+And now it was her turn to flush and wince. But was it wincing? The
+pulse which throbbed through her--was it truly resentment? A sense of
+sudden bewilderment came over her--a bewilderment which sought refuge,
+at first, in silence.
+
+"You--you almost threatened me," she allowed at last, with the ghost of
+a tiny smile. "And I am not accustomed to threats. They--they made me
+angry."
+
+"Yes, but you understood!" he cried. "You understood what I sought and
+for what reward?"
+
+There was something masterful, triumphant in his tone which grated on
+her instincts, a reaction to the days when all he said and did grated
+upon her. And it helped her to regain command of herself, to snatch
+herself from the brink to which she was drifting.
+
+"I hoped I misunderstood," she said coolly. "For it was a liberty. At
+the time I considered it an insult."
+
+She did not look at him, but she heard the quick intake of his breath.
+And the sudden pain in his voice smote her with remorse.
+
+"As an insult it is atoned?" he asked. "Does it remain a liberty still?"
+
+She turned her eyes to his, and he looked up to know his opportunity
+there, and could not grasp it. He lay a prisoner at her feet. If he had
+been free, if his arms had been about her, if he had used his man's
+strength and mastery to take and hold her, if opportunity had not mocked
+him, would he have won? Fate knows, but fate was smiling then. And the
+history of man and maid from all ages is with us. Yes, he would have
+won; he would have won.
+
+She gave a tiny gasp, and then the fugitive instinct, the primeval
+resort to flight, was upon her. She sent opportunity packing with her
+reply.
+
+"I am here, by my own choice, with you--alone," she reminded him. "A
+liberty may become a question of--circumstance."
+
+He flushed hotly, and again remorse gripped her as she saw the haggard
+lines draw in about his eyes.
+
+"I can only ask your pardon," he answered. "I ask it, humbly and
+contritely." He gave a wry little smile. "And perhaps circumstance is to
+blame, after all."
+
+Opportunity halted in her flight, hesitated, gave a returning step
+towards beckoning remorse. There was a shuffling sound at the door of
+the lazaret, and opportunity wheeled and fled.
+
+"Let me in!" said a childish voice impatiently. "It's me! It's me! Let
+me in!"
+
+The girl started forward.
+
+"John!" she cried. "Little John! Find the bolt! It's your side of the
+door!"
+
+The shuffling, scrabbling sound continued. An impatient foot kicked the
+panel. And then suddenly, creakingly, the door flew back. The child
+pranced gaily over the threshold.
+
+"I just kicked, so!" he explained, "and it flew in! I did not know there
+was a cupboard here." He gave a shrill little shout of amazement and
+capered towards Aylmer. "It's the pig man!" he cried. "The pig man!"
+
+Claire's arms closed about him and snatched him to her.
+
+"Oh, John--Little John!" she whispered fiercely. "Aren't you glad to see
+me, _me_?"
+
+He held his face back from her for an instant and looked at her
+appraisingly.
+
+"Yes," he said meditatively. "But you aren't come to make me wear clean
+things again? Muhammed doesn't."
+
+And then he wriggled energetically, his eyes on Aylmer.
+
+"Is he hurted?" he asked anxiously. "He was hurted once, last time I saw
+him. Why have they wrapped up his hands?"
+
+A sudden gleam shone on Aylmer's face. He held out the pinioned wrists.
+
+"Could you unknot them, old boy?" he asked quickly. "Would you like to
+try?"
+
+She gave him a glance of comprehension and let the child go. He leaned
+down over Aylmer and his little fingers picked at the cords. He pulled
+at first unavailingly. Aylmer gave low-voiced suggestions, showed which
+knot should be dealt with first. Claire, as she watched, put out a hand
+instinctively to help.
+
+He smiled, but snatched his wrists away.
+
+"You forget," he said quietly.
+
+She drew back.
+
+"Yes," she said. "I forgot," and a flame of unreasoning anger burned in
+her. Landon fought with any weapon he chose to forge--a lie had ever
+been the easiest to his hand. And they? They must not touch the fringe
+of disloyalty; even with him they had to keep perfect faith. Her
+feminine perceptions revolted; this was too rigid for her woman's mind.
+If she had forgotten, for a moment, her promise, why should he not avail
+himself of the slip, which was hers alone? And then she smiled. Had he
+not gone up in her estimation another step? Yes, and she smiled again;
+how long ago was it since she, who now looked up at him, had from so
+very great a height of condescension and dislike, looked down?
+
+Suddenly the child gave a little squeal of triumph.
+
+"There!" he cried. "You pull your hands--so! Then I pull so!" And
+shouted again, for the lashings which lay upon the parted wrists lay now
+loosely, in loops which dangled on the floor.
+
+And then, as anger had seized upon her, so did fear. She looked at him
+with suddenly apprehensive eyes.
+
+"You will do--what?" she asked tremulously. Her imagination pictured
+half a dozen dangers in as many seconds, all lurking to overwhelm a too
+reckless freedom.
+
+He smiled.
+
+"For the moment I dissemble, and wait," he said, and sat down quietly to
+loop anew the cords about his arms, but in running loops, this
+time--knots which would give before one well-directed pull.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+MILLER IS STILL IMPERTURBABLE
+
+
+As the imperturbable Mr. Miller reached the deck of the _Santa
+Margarita_, he took stock, for the second time within a few minutes, of
+his immediate surroundings.
+
+He saw an exceedingly dirty deck on which the smuts from the galley
+chimney appeared to have become embedded through long years of neglect.
+He smelt the very rich, nourishing odor of spaghetti fried with garlic,
+and sniffed unappreciatively, in spite of his hunger. He heard a couple
+of nasal voices chanting cheerfully, but with an exceedingly labored
+accent, the Bersaglieri quickstep, and made a tiny grimace of protest.
+Around him the panorama of sea was empty of all shipping. Land was out
+of sight.
+
+Muhammed leaned lazily against the tiller and eyed his late employer
+with the stolid apathy which an Oriental alone can make convincing.
+Lounging against the panel of the companion hatch, from which Landon and
+his companion had just emerged, sat the skipper, Signor Luigi, idly
+whittling a stick, and looking up at his passenger with an amiable
+indifference.
+
+Miller, it must be remembered, had just passed a night of great
+discomfort and mental agitation following a most unanticipated shock.
+His nerves--is it wonderful?--were at tension. In spite of his own
+imperturbability, on which he set some store, the _insouciant_ aspect of
+his surroundings jarred on him. Was kidnapping, then, such an everyday
+affair that men cooked, and sang, and whittled under his very nose while
+the pirate's gallows very possibly stood awaiting them? He had probably
+never approached petulance more nearly in the course of his well-ordered
+existence.
+
+He turned to Landon with a little shrug.
+
+The other was holding out the half of a yard-long roll of bread, with a
+lump of doubtful-looking cheese.
+
+"I would have suggested a plateful of that spaghetti, my dear Miller,"
+he smiled, "but my watchful eye understood the curl of your nostril.
+This is at least clean."
+
+Miller drew an edge of tarpaulin over a heaped rope, and, after a
+regretful glance at his no longer immaculately gray trousers, sat down.
+He took the bread and cheese and began to eat slowly.
+
+There was something bovine in the manner in which he carefully champed
+each mouthful, something ruminative about the way in which he looked
+around him. But behind this stolid mask of indifference his brain was
+working rapidly. He was putting facts as they appeared to him to the
+test of logic and experience. His mental summing up was rapid. A
+felucca, of Italian register: crew, three men and a boy. Engaged in the
+contraband trade more or less continuously, for the ingeniously
+contrived lazaret between the cabin and the galley showed an attention
+to detail made necessary by continual service. The real mast passed
+through the centre of his prison of the previous night. Yet the half of
+a mast, a sham half, of course, passed through the partition and showed
+in the cabin. Doubtless another half was to be seen likewise in the
+galley. It was a neat idea; there was nothing to indicate to the casual
+glance of a custom's officer that the partition between the two was not
+what it appeared to be. Nothing but actual measurements would discover
+the space which hid the intervening lazaret.
+
+With the tonic of food, his self-reliance was entirely his again. He
+turned to confront Landon after half a dozen mouthfuls, alert to probe
+for the limits of his position. Landon had greatly dared. Did he
+understand how greatly? Miller felt himself restored to a state of
+energy and resolution which would very quickly find out.
+
+"This," he enunciated slowly, "is of the nature of piracy. Do you and
+your underlings realize it?"
+
+Landon was lighting a cigarette. He sucked in a full mouthful of smoke
+and shot it out again before he replied. The act was artificial--far too
+artificial, Miller told himself--in its indifference.
+
+"My underlings," he answered, "realize that they are well on the way
+to--what shall we say--a modest competency. Beyond that, their very
+finite understandings have not advanced. _Domani_ or _manana_ are words
+frequent in their vocabularies, but not in relation to results.
+Comfortable procrastination--that is the whole sense which they
+appreciate in them."
+
+"Your own outlook is sufficiently intelligent to pierce beyond
+to-morrow," said the other, drily.
+
+"Certainly!" agreed Landon. "I dwell upon to-morrow, and the day after
+to-morrow, and the day after that! I engage in prescient revels in their
+rosy-tinted hours!"
+
+Miller made a little inarticulate sound which expressed a restrained but
+unequivocal irritation.
+
+"Shall we be business-like?" he proposed. "You have entrapped on board
+this boat three people, including myself. What advantage do you expect
+to get out of the situation and, bluntly, how?"
+
+"You are such a rigid man of affairs," complained Landon. "You refuse
+even to eat your breakfast without distractions."
+
+"I find myself in an extraordinary and unfamiliar situation," said
+Miller. "It is obvious that I wish to disentangle myself from it as soon
+as possible. Let me hear and accept or reject your terms. Is there any
+need to be mysterious?"
+
+"None," said Landon, amiably. "But I have not been a man of successful
+_coups_, so far, my dear friend, and you must not grudge me the
+unaccustomed zests I draw from this one. To clear the situation, I
+purpose holding you all three to ransom."
+
+"Where?"
+
+Landon laughed.
+
+"That you must allow me to consider a trade secret. I intend to retain
+your company and that of my cousin and my sister-in-law till I am richer
+by some forty thousand pounds. There you have the situation in a
+nutshell. I am willing to take the advice of such a finished man of the
+world as yourself on business methods. The end in view I cannot consent
+to vary."
+
+The gray man shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"You are of opinion that money will be paid for me? By whom?"
+
+"I can conceive two sources of supply. The German Government--pray don't
+allow yourself to be startled--or, in the last resort, yourself. You are
+not a poor man, unless you have grossly misused your opportunities."
+
+"The German Government has no interests of any kind in my well-being or
+otherwise."
+
+"I must take your word for it," said Landon, politely. "The alternative
+remains by us, literally."
+
+"Meanwhile, what about the laws of--whatever country you purpose using
+the shore of? We do not, I take it, remain afloat--a sort of modern
+Vanderdecken?"
+
+"Let me assure you that no laws or lawgivers will be of the slightest
+assistance. My friend Luigi and I propose being a law unto ourselves and
+you."
+
+"Ah."
+
+Miller's tone was reflective and impassive. He had found out one of the
+things he wanted to know. As he suspected, they were being taken to some
+remoteness, probably an island. He digested the information silently.
+
+"You must pardon the want of--of finish in our arrangements," said
+Landon. "Your capture was entirely unpremeditated; you were a gift from
+the hand of fate. Your suggestion about my child undid you. The boy has
+become the pivot of Muhammed's existence. Queer, don't you think? I have
+never professed to plumb the depths of the Oriental mind."
+
+"And Miss Van Arlen and Aylmer?" questioned Miller. "That was a matter
+of premeditation?"
+
+"Nothing less than an inspiration, a stroke of genius conceived in a
+moment in Muhammed's brain. Premeditate? How could we premeditate? We
+expected you and you only, or your messenger, by the next day's boat."
+
+Miller nodded.
+
+"Miss Van Arlen and her companion are officially drowned," he said. "My
+own disappearance--how is that accounted for?"
+
+"The matter is now probably engaging the interest of the Melilla
+police. They need distraction; theirs is a gray life," said Landon,
+pleasantly.
+
+Again Miller nodded, perhaps unconsciously, and in assent to some
+deduction of his own mind. He kept his meditative air for a second or
+two, shrugged his shoulders again pessimistically, and then made a brisk
+gesture of acquiescence.
+
+"And your terms--to myself--are what?" he asked.
+
+"Ten thousand golden sovereigns," said Landon. "Do I hurt your
+self-esteem by my moderation?"
+
+Miller smiled again sombrely.
+
+"That is, of course, preposterous," he said. "I do not possess half the
+sum. I should not pay it, if I did. If the alternative is that you
+support me for the remaining number of my days, I must accept it."
+
+"That would not be the alternative," answered Landon. "In fact, I hope
+to be able to prove to you that an alternative is lacking. But, at the
+same time, I am willing to hear proposals."
+
+"My proposal remains what it was yesterday. Make your peace with your
+wife's family, give up the child. I shall then be able, I have little
+doubt, to put you in the way of earning more than the sum you suggest.
+But that you become a person tolerated in ordinary English society is
+essential."
+
+"I am, in fact, to work laboriously for what is already in my grasp. You
+underrate my business capacity, my dear sir, you really do."
+
+The gray shoulders were shrugged.
+
+"I might possibly allow a payment of a thousand--let us say--on account.
+That would suffice to establish you in a decent and plausible position.
+The work, as you call it, would not be difficult. I rather fancy you
+would find it amusing."
+
+"I think you want me badly," said Landon. "I think I must be unique for
+your purposes."
+
+"Don't assume that it is your intelligence which my employers wish to
+buy," said Miller, coolly. "It is your social standing, still something
+of an asset in your caste-ridden land."
+
+"But I refuse to have my intelligence underrated," protested Landon,
+gaily. "I hug it; it tells me many things which you may not suspect.
+One of them is that there is a lever which will displace your
+self-confidence. You are a very bad bearer of--physical pain."
+
+Very faint was the pulse of the emotion which throbbed through Miller's
+eyes as he turned them towards his companion, but distinct enough for
+Landon to discover and greet with another amiable little laugh.
+
+"It's where blood tells," he said. "I discovered it accidentally; we
+spoke of what D'Amade's men had to undergo as prisoners at the hands of
+the Moors, did we not? I mentioned the eyes gouged out, the fettered
+wounded flung on slow fires, the impaled. You flinched, my dear sir, you
+flinched badly and--I tried you again. I harked back to like subjects
+more than once; the result satisfied me. And then I began to dwell upon
+your complexion. Is that olive tint from Spain, or was there a near
+forefather in the gorgeous East? Are you of Hindoo blood, my friend--are
+you?"
+
+Miller's impassive eyes met his, looked deeply within them, and wandered
+vaguely towards the empty spaces of the sea. Landon chuckled.
+
+"By God, I wouldn't stop anywhere, with you, you renegade!" he swore
+with sudden, hot, irrational rancor. "I'd deal with you. Will any one
+stop me? Ask those men--Mafiaists, every one. Stop me! They'd give me
+tips; they'd mutilate you as they'd mutilate their own domestic animals,
+for fun!"
+
+Miller drew back a couple of paces, not with any show of disgust or
+fear, but with the air of an artist who wishes to regard a finished work
+from a more distant aspect. And he surveyed Landon keenly.
+
+"So I am being threatened?" he said quietly.
+
+Landon grinned wickedly.
+
+"So you're being threatened," he agreed. "Deliberate the matter; give it
+your best attention; and all the while remember that there is nothing
+which will stop me, not a single solitary thing."
+
+"I think you are wrong," said Miller, slowly, and then--the sound of it
+was bizarre to the last degree between his lips--he whistled a quaint
+little run, which thrilled and quavered up and down half a dozen bars to
+end upon a long-drawn note.
+
+There was a queer silence. Landon looked at him with a frown which
+implied scarcely apprehension, but what is nearly akin to
+it--bewilderment. For there was no mistaking the intention with which
+the thing was done. Miller had whistled the tripping little air
+deliberately.
+
+There was a stirring from below. The two hands appeared, and appeared
+with a suddenness which left no room for doubt that they had been
+summoned. The savor of burning spaghetti followed them; the summons had
+been one exacting instant obedience. They had left the frying-pan upon
+the fire. Together with their appearance came the sound from the
+companion of Captain Luigi stumbling to his feet.
+
+"Fling this man overboard!" said Miller, in level, indifferent tones. He
+pointed to Landon.
+
+Landon gave a shout which brimmed with incredulity as much as fear. His
+hand flew to his breast pocket fumblingly, but too late. Miller's grip
+was on his wrist; Miller's thrust flung him into the skipper's waiting
+arms. As Muhammed relinquished the helm and sprang forward, one of the
+deck hands ducked, tripped him, and rose between his legs--that deadly
+Mafiaist trick which never fails of its results. The other had closed in
+upon Landon as he struggled in the captain's grip. He assisted to drag
+him relentlessly towards the gunwale.
+
+Landon yelled again. His eyes glared out of the struggle at Miller in a
+very fury of amazement. He bellowed oaths, blasphemies, obscenities
+even, the fruits of instinctive passions and automatic to his wrath. And
+there was something almost devilish in the silence which his two
+assailants kept. They panted a little, by stress of effort, but they
+uttered no other sound. They merely edged their victim nearer and yet
+nearer to the side, forced him against the gunwale, stooped with
+concerted action for one last heave, and then--fell away from him with a
+little obsequious shrug. For Miller's voice had been heard again.
+
+"_Basta_--enough!" he had said, his voice still unraised.
+
+Landon lay where their relinquished efforts had left him, huddled
+against the gunwale, and staring up at his surroundings with fierce,
+incredulous eyes. Muhammed was stretched prone beneath his assailant
+who, as he tripped him, had deftly caught the Moor's right wrist and
+twisted it behind his back. He sat on his prisoner now, still holding
+the other's hand, but carelessly and without open concern, perfectly
+aware that the slightest movement from his human pedestal would break
+the delicate bone as pipe-clay breaks--in one clean snap.
+
+"Have I made myself plain?" asked Miller, equably.
+
+Landon used a moment of complete silence to stare round the deck,
+poising his glance on each of his companions in turn. It rested, at
+last, on Miller's entirely emotionless countenance.
+
+"Yes--and damn you!" said Landon, rising sullenly to his feet.
+
+Miller nodded.
+
+"An amateur cannot break into my particular class of business, my dear
+Landon," he said. "There are pitfalls for him at every turn. Membership
+of a dozen organizations is necessary, and they are close corporations;
+even their humbler servants, as you see, find them rigidly exacting."
+
+Landon shrugged his shoulders, produced his cigarette case and
+match-box, stuck a match in his mouth, and drew the cigarette across the
+roughened edge of the box. Miller suffered himself to smile.
+
+"Your nerves are not altogether at their best," he allowed, "but there
+is no need to emphasize the fact. I have no wish to deal harshly with
+you. In fact, half of the scheme you have just outlined to me has my
+approval. I shall not interfere with your desire to receive compensation
+from your father-in-law, but whatever you receive you will regard, if
+you please, as from me, provided by my efforts and to be accounted for
+in full! Is that understood?"
+
+Landon shrugged his shoulders again.
+
+"I welcome your assistance," he said quietly, and put the cigarette to
+its appointed use.
+
+"But _my_ scheme has, in the final event, to be carried out in all its
+details," Miller added. "In your bargain with your relations, complete
+social regeneration and recognition is included."
+
+"But not--the boy?" said Landon, slowly.
+
+"But not the boy," repeated Miller. "The first, I have satisfied myself,
+cannot be obtained without the surrender of the second. You follow me?"
+
+Landon looked at Muhammed, looked at the deck hand who still sat
+impassive on the Moor's shoulders, looked at Luigi, looked, lastly, at
+Miller.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"We are in your hands--literally," he said, and made an amiable gesture
+of assent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+AYLMER CLIMBS--AND FALLS
+
+
+The door of the lazaret was pulled quietly back. The opening showed
+Miller, silhouetted as in a frame, a splash of sunshine which flowed
+down into the outer cabin hanging in a golden halo, as it were, behind
+his remarkably solid looking head. Coming from the full light into the
+darkness--for the lamp was already flickering to final extinction--he
+blinked. And there was something unhuman in his aspect as he stood
+there, searching the gloom with his impassive eyes, something not
+altogether stealthy, but yet something with a tinge of menace in it. So,
+no doubt, the hovering night-bird comes to a pause above its victim.
+
+His glance first recognized Miss Van Arlen. He demonstrated the fact by
+a little deferential movement--a bow which seemed to deprecate, or even
+criticize, the circumstance of her surroundings. He smiled, but with
+slightly raised eyebrows, and as his glance travelled on to meet
+Aylmer's there was a hint of suggestion in it. It was a glance, at any
+rate, which was responsible for the faint flush which rose to the girl's
+cheek and for the hardening of Aylmer's lips. For some reason unknown
+even to himself, the latter's bound arms instinctively moved towards the
+child, who had nestled against his shoulder and had there fallen asleep.
+
+"A scene which would catch a painter's--or a poet's eye--" said the
+gray man, meditatively. "We could call it Innocence, could we not?"
+
+Again he looked from one to the other with that questioning, suggestive
+glance which somehow seemed to deprecate, and yet, at the same time,
+imply equivocation. Neither answered him, and he made an energetic
+gesture--one which relegated trivialities to forgetfulness.
+
+"I must be a source of wonder to you; I am to myself!" he cried. "To
+allow myself to be trapped into such trifling at such a moment! It is
+the artistic temperament; you must address your amazement to it and your
+forgiveness to me. I bring good news, relatively."
+
+Claire rose from her seat on the floor.
+
+"Yes?" she said eagerly. "There is a chance of escape, or, perhaps,
+rescue?"
+
+His eyes became sombre.
+
+"No, my dear young lady," he said. "My optimism has not reached so far,
+as yet. But I have persuaded our captors that Captain Aylmer's detention
+here is not necessary. They do not exact a parole from him, but they
+permit me to loose his lower limbs and to give him the freedom of the
+deck. It is because his release implies your own that this concession
+gives me--and him--undoubted pleasure."
+
+He stooped as he finished speaking, and quickly and deftly unlashed the
+cords at Aylmer's ankles and, with a jerk, pulled him to his feet. He
+shrugged his shoulders as he looked at the still tethered hands.
+
+"I fear I am helpless there, my dear fellow," he said. "Complete rights
+of enfranchisement were not allowed me."
+
+Claire parted her lips as if to speak, hesitated, and pressed them
+firmly together again. The shackling of those wrists was a mere blind
+but--Aylmer forbore to communicate the fact to Miller. Why?
+
+Miller looked at her keenly, inquiringly.
+
+"Yes?" he said. "You want further information? Is that it?"
+
+"I have a hundred questions to ask," she smiled. "How did you get this
+concession? Where are we? What are they doing with us? What is our
+destination?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders again.
+
+"As to the first--a little tact was all that was necessary, though tact,
+indeed, is too self-laudatory a word. Logic, let us say. I showed him
+how unnecessary it was to antagonize a man with whom he would eventually
+have to chaffer. That was mere common-sense, was it not?"
+
+"Chaffer?" repeated Aylmer. He considered Miller; for an appreciable
+moment he surveyed him silently. "That implies a bargain, and to bargain
+there must be goods to sell. Landon has none which will tempt me."
+
+"Liberty," suggested Miller. "Comfort, and not for yourself alone?"
+
+"With Landon I do not bargain," said Landon's cousin, doggedly. "I have
+set myself to clean our name of the stigmas with which he had bedaubed
+it. There are no terms to be made."
+
+"You sacrifice yourself?" said Miller. He paused. "Have you the right to
+sacrifice others?"
+
+"No," said Aylmer, quietly. "You and Miss Van Arlen must do exactly what
+seems best for yourselves. That is a deal apart."
+
+Miller shook his head.
+
+"No, my dear Captain Aylmer," he answered. "That is exactly what it is
+not. Landon's terms concern us all."
+
+Claire looked at him anxiously.
+
+"He has told you them?" she cried. "You are his messenger?"
+
+Miller gave a little bow of acquiescence.
+
+"They are bluntly these," he said. "For you he demands from your father
+the sum of twenty-five thousand pounds. For your nephew, double that
+amount. For myself, I must apologize for placing myself next, but the
+financial sequence necessitates it, ten thousand. For our friend
+here--nothing, or, to be precise, nothing in cash."
+
+She did not flinch as he mentioned the sums. She merely looked
+contemptuous.
+
+"Is that all?" she asked. "He is a common blackmailer?"
+
+Miller shook his head.
+
+"No," he said. "Unfortunately that is not all."
+
+He looked directly at Aylmer.
+
+"It rests with you," he said suddenly. "He wants from you--silence. What
+has happened is as if it had never been. You are to allow him to take
+his place unquestioned in the society which befits his rank. He wishes
+to turn a new leaf."
+
+Aylmer met the look with blank incredulity, at first. Then his lips
+tightened with determination.
+
+"And you?" he cried. "You are taking him seriously? You are going to
+give him this money?"
+
+Miller's out-turned palms expressed a vague pessimism.
+
+"Is there an alternative?" he asked.
+
+Aylmer laughed harshly.
+
+"Blank refusal: what is his answer to that?"
+
+The dark eyes searched the two expectant faces meditatively. The thin
+prehensile fingers picked at a loose splinter in the bulkhead.
+
+"I think he would find a way," he said slowly. "I think--in fact he has
+threatened it--he would--_hurt_ you!"
+
+Aylmer stared at the gray figure, puzzled, frowning. Miller had used a
+new voice for the two last syllables, a voice that shook ever so
+slightly with some concealed emotion. "Hurt you," he reiterated sharply,
+and then darted a quick, bird-like glance at Aylmer--a look full of
+interrogation.
+
+Claire Van Arlen moved forward with a sudden startled movement.
+
+"Hurt!" she cried. "You mean that he would use torture?"
+
+"I think," said Miller, very slowly, "that he would use anything."
+
+And then Aylmer began to laugh--loudly, gaily, and quite
+whole-heartedly. Miller's eyebrows proclaimed their owner's
+astonishment.
+
+"Melodrama!" explained Aylmer, still chuckling. "I remember Landon as a
+small boy, even before his Eton days. He bred these leanings then. He
+wasted his pocket money on 'bloods,' I think they are called--penny
+exhilarators for youths of tender years, crammed with impossible
+villainies. And now he is going to tie flaming splinters between my
+fingers and squeeze my thumbs in the crack of the door! This is the
+price I am to pay for refusing him social rehabilitation. We cannot
+congratulate him on his sense of humor, we really cannot."
+
+Miller paused over his reply, looked down, looked up, and then bridged a
+moment of hesitation with his usual expedient--a shrug.
+
+"For the moment I fear he hasn't got one," he said.
+
+"Possibly not," agreed Aylmer. He nodded towards the door. "I'll take
+advantage of his concessions to come and see." He gave another little
+confident nod to usher the other two before him. As the child ran
+forward he caught him up with his bound hands and raised him shoulder
+high. Then, stooping, he passed out at Miller's heels on to the deck. He
+was laughing still, laughing up at the boy as the childish fingers
+steadied themselves in his hair.
+
+"You won't be able to do that when they shave it to put the pitch
+plaster on," he cried. "And when they've stretched me on the rack, I
+shall be too tall to carry you out of a cabin. And as for being a pig
+man again, and carrying a spear after the thumbscrews have been applied,
+why, it simply won't bear thinking about!"
+
+As he emerged on deck he looked about him keenly. Muhammed's was the
+first figure which caught his eye. The Moor was sitting on the gunwale
+opposite the companion, looking shoreward. And the shore, to Aylmer's
+surprise, was very near on the starboard bow.
+
+Suddenly he realized that it was not the mainland which he saw, but an
+archipelago of islands girdled with reefs. Rockbound channels were
+frames to pictures of the dun red African strand half a dozen miles
+away.
+
+He looked aft. The sun was not far from its setting, hanging in a red
+disc above the distant hills of Algeria. The captain was at the tiller.
+Beside him lounged Landon, watching a gray-painted torpedo boat which
+had emerged from the shelter of the islands and was about to pass close
+under their stern. The gold and crimson of the Spanish naval ensign
+floated at her flagstaff.
+
+Landon looked round as he heard the footsteps of the newcomers on the
+deck. He nodded them a greeting without changing his seat, and did it
+with a studied air of contempt.
+
+"Well?" he said laconically.
+
+Aylmer was silent. His glance traveled over Landon's head to examine the
+war vessel as it passed.
+
+The captain grunted something in an undertone. Landon laughed, and held
+up the first and fourth fingers of his right hand horn-wise.
+
+"The good Luigi advises me to avert the evil eye," he explained. "Does
+that glance of yours threaten us, my affectionate cousin, does it?"
+
+Aylmer sat back upon the boom and looked at the other squarely. The
+child scrambled from his shoulder and went back along the deck to stand
+at Muhammed's knee. But the Moor, after a quick, welcoming smile, showed
+no further recognition of his presence. His glance, the glances, indeed,
+of all on board, centered in the meeting of the two who eyed each other
+across the slant of Signor Luigi's tiller.
+
+Aylmer made a motion of his head towards Miller.
+
+"You sent this man to bargain with me?" he said.
+
+"No," said Landon. "I sent him to tell you my terms."
+
+He laughed; he looked Aylmer insolently in the face and laughed again.
+
+"The thick-headedness of you is what amuses me," he said. "The crass
+incapability of understanding your own case. Order, respectability, good
+feeling, as you call it--these have been propping you all your life. You
+don't understand--how should you?--what it is to be in the hands of a
+man who gives not a jot for any one of them." He snapped his fingers.
+"Not that!" he added. "For honor, standing, the esteem of my fellows I
+give nothing--nothing!"
+
+"And yet chaffer to obtain them," said Aylmer, drily.
+
+"I don't chaffer; I take," said Landon. "I am requiring them as mere
+stage properties necessary to the carrying out of my other purposes.
+Intrinsically they have no value for me."
+
+"Unfortunately for you, you have neither the weapons to win them nor the
+means to buy them," said Aylmer.
+
+"Haven't I?" said Landon, slowly. "Haven't I?" He rose from his seat and
+came a pace or two nearer. "Listen to me, you--you blazing fool!" he
+snarled. "I have you here to break, as I will. See that you don't goad
+me into doing it, for the mere pleasure of seeing you squirm. You give
+me your promise to accept me, push me forward, vouch for me, in the
+rotten mob you call society, or, by God, you'll be sorry before I've
+done with you!"
+
+Aylmer still stared relentlessly into the other's eyes.
+
+"You haven't a thing that'll touch me--not a single thing!" he said. "My
+life? Do you think that has a value for me above the hope of clearing
+you from a decent family's path--into the gutter!"
+
+Landon went white with passion. His fingers worked.
+
+"By the Lord!" he said, and his eyes shot menacing lightnings towards
+Miller, not towards his cousin; "by the Lord, am I to keep my hands off
+him--after that?"
+
+There was a sort of appeal in the question. There was malignance, there
+was red anger, but there was entreaty, the cry of a slave to a master.
+Claire recognized it; so did Aylmer, with amazement.
+
+They both looked at the gray man.
+
+Miller's gesture was all humility, all dejection.
+
+"Don't exasperate him, Captain Aylmer," he pleaded. "He has weapons; he
+has, indeed!"
+
+Landon laughed malevolently.
+
+"By God, I have!" he cried. "Your thick body and your ox's nerves? You
+can pit them against me, if you like! What about your finer feelings, as
+I suppose you'd call them? What about your honor? And--what
+about--_hers_?"
+
+He shot the question out fiercely, insistently, pointing at Claire.
+
+A sudden dryness coated Aylmer's lips.
+
+"What do you mean?" he demanded. He rose, too, towering over Landon from
+the full height of his stature and that, indeed, seemed to have added
+inches to itself since the other spoke.
+
+But Landon, drunk with venom, did not flinch.
+
+"Look at her!" he cried, still pointing. "Look at her! And if you defy
+me, you shall have something more to look at before long! I'll deal with
+her; I'll let these men have their will of her; I'll drag her through
+filth enough--I'll--"
+
+His voice broke hideously into a shriek of pain. Aylmer had flung off
+the lashings on his wrists and continued the movement, as it were, into
+one direct, smashing blow on Landon's mouth!
+
+And Landon fell as a log falls, stark, inert, his head meeting the
+tiller end in his fall with frightful emphasis. He rolled into the
+scuppers at the captain's feet, bloody, disfigured, unconscious as the
+deck itself.
+
+There was a rush from the two deck hands. Muhammed came flying aft.
+Aylmer dodged, landed his fist on the Moor's temple, evaded the hands
+stretched out for him, and sprang for the rigging. Within the space of
+seconds he was standing upon the great cross spar of the lateen, leaning
+against the mast, and waving his arms in semaphore-wise towards the gray
+stern of the torpedo boat as she slid away against the disc of the
+setting sun.
+
+The captain yelled aloud with fury.
+
+"He is signalling to them!" he screamed. "God's Mother! If they see him
+we're undone!"
+
+A sudden light gleamed in Claire's eyes, a light of hope, of relief
+and--bright above them all--admiration. This was a man. Her woman's
+blood quickened to the knowledge that his man's strength had been used
+brutally, splendidly, for her. She cried aloud her encouragement. She
+waved her hand.
+
+"Make them see you, make them!" she called. She beat her open hand upon
+the taffrail in her passion.
+
+The gunboat slowed. Half a dozen signal flags rushed up to her peak. The
+white foam of her wake disappeared slowly with the stopping of her
+engines. Captain Luigi cried out again; he addressed invectives to
+things terrestrial and to celestial things apostrophes at a set value in
+candles, using both forms of eloquence impartially to goad his
+hesitating deck hands to pull Aylmer from his eyrie at the risk of their
+lives. The mariners shook their heads.
+
+And then, at the captain's ear, harshly, snippingly, between his teeth,
+Miller spoke.
+
+"Let go the halliards!" he hissed. "Let go the halliards!"
+
+And Claire Van Arlen heard.
+
+She cried out to Aylmer warningly, shrill in her despair. He did not
+hear or, perhaps, in the intentness of his task, did not heed. She cried
+out again.
+
+Too late!
+
+The two men flung themselves upon the ropes which held the great lateen
+yard in place, slacked them, payed them out suddenly a couple of yards.
+Aylmer tottered, rocked forward, and then maintained his hand hold upon
+the mast. But this time the men reversed the operation. With a
+tremendous effort they jerked the ropes. The spar leaped upwards!
+
+And Aylmer shot into the air and landed stunningly upon the planking at
+Claire Van Arlen's feet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+FATE STAYS HER HAND
+
+
+Rescue, liberty, and, not least, triumph over Landon! These were all
+possibilities, even probabilities, clear to Claire Van Arlen's
+intelligence as she bent over Aylmer--clear, but undefined. Yet the one
+outstanding, engrossing thought was that her champion had fallen in the
+moment of victory. The blood was flowing from a deep cut on his
+forehead; he was unconscious; the color had ebbed from his very lips. An
+agony of apprehension seized upon her. He was dead! He was dead!
+
+And then--the pulse of that relief will be quick in her to her dying
+day--his eyes opened, he stirred. He did more than stir; he made efforts
+to rise.
+
+She held him masterfully; her voice was stern in her command to him to
+lie still. And he looked up at her with an incredulous glance in which
+humor had its part. He smiled--a puzzled smile. Suddenly remembrance
+came back to him and his bewilderment became anxiety.
+
+"The gunboat?" he asked hoarsely. "They saw me, they were slowing down!"
+
+She nodded silently as she looked about her. They had floated within the
+shadow cast by the towering bulk of the island nearest them. The last
+red rim of the sun's disc had passed below the horizon. The dusk was
+gathering. A mile away the gunboat was turning ponderously.
+
+Rapidly she told him what she saw and he nodded a satisfied assent.
+
+"They're done, now," he whispered triumphantly. "We have them in a cleft
+stick!"
+
+But Fate--listening Fate--shook her head.
+
+It was Muhammed who had taken command of the situation, Muhammed who
+roared his orders to hoist again the half-lowered sail, to let drift the
+dingy from the stern, to stand by the halliards for a tack. He leaped
+upon the tiller and flung the boat's prow round to point directly for
+the land.
+
+The freshening breeze from the northwest swelled out the great sail as
+the panting sailors swung the yard aslant the mast. The water sang and
+bubbled from the prow. The _Santa Margarita_ leaped landwards like a
+living thing, straight for the cliffs of shadowing stone.
+
+Captain Luigi, completely unnerved by the sudden crisis to which events
+had soared, wailed protests without attempting interference.
+
+"I call you to witness that I said he had the evil eye!" he cried. "I
+call you to witness! Capture or destruction--there are no two ways to
+it!"
+
+"There is One God and one road to safety for a brave man," answered
+Muhammed, as he leaned his strength upon the helm. "They call it
+courage. Run out the French flag, _amigo_! They dare not fire on that,
+here, in debatable waters, for all their claim to these islands as
+within the grip of Spain."
+
+A sudden pang of doubt shook Claire. The gunboat was completing its
+turning movement--slowly--ah, how slowly! And yet? How could the
+felucca, with no more than a fresh breeze to rely on, hope to evade
+that greyhound of the seas? A spout of gray smoke burst from the gray
+painted sides; the sound of a cannon shot echoed down to them among the
+crags.
+
+Muhammed laughed.
+
+"Blank cartridge," he said derisively. "Within five minutes their faces
+will be as blank. Sons of dirt, I spit upon you!"
+
+The girl's apprehension grew. Confidence rang in the Moor's voice. He
+smiled as one who had already triumphed. And still the felucca drove
+shorewards, relentlessly towards the bare face of stone.
+
+But the torpedo boat was gaining speed. The white lift of the foam was
+veiling her bows; she ripped through the waters as a blade rips through
+calico, directly, cleanly, tossing aside the waves. Another few
+minutes--seven--six--perhaps less--and she must be alongside. And the
+island cliff seemed to overhang them now; the great sail flapped as the
+breeze beat back from the sheer rock against its breadth.
+
+A second time Muhammed roared his orders. The sailors shifted the huge
+spar around the mast, swinging it as on a pivot. The _Santa Margarita_
+came about, dancingly.
+
+The rush and boil of breaking foam on the seaward bow caught Claire's
+ear. She glanced over the taffrail.
+
+A comber was breaking on a great tooth of black rock within half a
+cable's length of the boat. Not far ahead she saw the white after-spume
+of another--and beyond that a third--a fourth--countless ones. They were
+within a very labyrinth of reefs. And Muhammed, swerving the tiller
+delicately from side to side, steered unshaken, his eyes piercing into
+the swiftly coming gloom, the smile of victory growing round his lips.
+
+She understood, and before she turned her eyes astern knew hope was
+lost. The torpedo boat was slackening speed; the cream of her wake began
+to slide past her sides and swirl round her bow as she slowed, went
+astern, halted on the lips of danger, and then reluctantly turned.
+
+A yell went up from the felucca as the crew saw themselves saved--a yell
+of defiance.
+
+Again the gray jet of smoke spurted from the gray port, and this time
+the background of purple dusk showed the red tongue of the flame. The
+sound of the report reached them, but not so swiftly as another sound--a
+nerve-rending menace which shrieked in their very ears, as it seemed,
+and passed, to thunder crashingly against the forehead of the crag. And
+again Muhammed laughed and showed his white teeth, and roared to his
+fellows to swing the yard-arm about as he spun the boat between two
+waiting jaws of rock and sent her bounding out into the open before the
+lash of the favoring breeze. And night fell over them--for Claire Van
+Arlen the hopeless night of despair.
+
+She looked up to find Miller standing beside her, looking down at
+Aylmer's face with sombre, inquiring eyes. And she realized for the
+first time that in that face the eyes were closed again, the lips
+bloodless, the cheeks sunken. She gave an exclamation; she bent and
+stanched the blood which still flowed from the wounded temple.
+
+Miller picked up a bucket, seized a rope, attached it to the handle, and
+slung it overboard. He placed it, brimmed with water, at her feet. She
+looked up again, eyed him silently and without thanks, dipped her
+handkerchief in the water and laved Aylmer's face. And Miller himself
+remained silent, as if he would force the first comment from her, as if
+he probed for information by mere inertness. Had he been heard? She
+guessed that he was asking himself--and by force of silence, her--this
+question.
+
+A sudden instinct not to betray herself gripped her. Aylmer? Was not he
+an example of a like reticence? He had not revealed the fact that his
+hands were free till circumstances had revealed it, with a vengeance.
+She would follow this example and so tell nothing. She pillowed Aylmer's
+head gently upon a coil of rope and stood up.
+
+"The hope of rescue is gone then?" she said quietly. "There is no chance
+of their rounding the island, and encountering us later?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders doubtfully.
+
+"They seldom carry search-lights--craft of that size, in the Spanish
+navy, at any rate. No, Muhammed's seamanship has taken the trick this
+time. Spanish captains do not waste coal lavishly, and what, after all,
+have they to go on. Merely the words 'Help! Prisoners!' It might easily
+have been the vagary of some half-drunken sponge-fisher."
+
+She looked at him keenly.
+
+"That was what he signalled?" she said. "You understood that?"
+
+"I know the international code," he said simply. He looked down at
+Aylmer again. "His escapade has not improved our position," he added.
+"When Landon comes to himself--"
+
+"He is not seriously wounded, then?" she cried in quick disappointment.
+"I had hoped--I had prayed--"
+
+"What?" he asked, as she hesitated.
+
+"That he had been killed," she answered slowly. "Is there any escape
+from the net of villainy in which he has us all entrapped?"
+
+He looked at her silently, and the dawn of a hard smile glimmered about
+his lips. He pointed aft.
+
+"Will you come and look?" he said. "Perhaps I have undervalued your
+prayers. I am no surgeon, but I would wager a larger sum on his reviving
+than I would on the recovery of--this."
+
+He touched Aylmer with the point of his foot. There was no ungentleness
+in the action, but it seemed instinctive--the gesture of an autocrat or
+of a dictator, seeing all men under his feet.
+
+She gave a gesture of assent and followed him into the gloom cast by the
+sail upon the stern. Landon lay within a foot of where he had fallen,
+his head pillowed upon a tarpaulin. Muhammed had relinquished the tiller
+to Captain Luigi and was dropping _aguardiente_ between the set lips and
+the color was stealing slowly back into the cheeks which had been as
+pale as Aylmer's own. Landon's eyes opened as Claire reached and stood
+beside him.
+
+They met hers at first without recognition. Then a gleam of feeling
+flashed in them--a gleam which grew in fierceness as he gazed.
+
+"I remember!" he muttered. He made a feeble effort to rise, which
+Muhammed prevented by the steady pressure of a hand. "By the Lord, he
+shall pay for it--and you!"
+
+And then, meeting that glance, and stricken by the revulsion from the
+hope which the events of the last few minutes had engendered, Claire
+surrendered to a sense of despair. What could the future hold for her
+except--the worst? As far as she was concerned, the deal with fate was
+finished and she had lost finally. But even despair could not crush the
+maternal, protective instinct which had sprung into being in the silo of
+El Dibh, which had grown into full flower through the last dark hours in
+the lazaret. She spoke quickly, on the spur of the moment.
+
+"Him you cannot hurt," she answered. "He is escaping you; he is dying."
+
+Landon struggled under Muhammed's restraining hand.
+
+"Is he?" he cried, looking at Miller. "Is he? He's not going before I
+get my hands on him! For God's sake, man, say he isn't! Say it isn't
+true!"
+
+Miller shrugged his shoulders apathetically.
+
+"We'll do all we can," he temporized.
+
+Landon gnashed his teeth and burst into hysterical weeping.
+
+"Ah, but I wanted to have my will of him!" he cried. "It's he and all
+the thousands like him that have put me here! The cursed hypocrites! I
+slipped; I went against their code, and they jostled each other to
+trample me when I was down! And I?" He shook his fist weakly into the
+night. "I? I was no worse than the best of them. I was only myself--the
+natural man--and they flung me out! And I could have repaid every stab,
+every kick, on him--on him!"
+
+He writhed and then suddenly steadied himself. Again his eyes focussed
+evilly upon Claire.
+
+"Go to him!" he ordered. "Go to him and do your utmost for him! Bring
+him round and I'll be light with you; I'll save you--the worst of it.
+Let him slip through your fingers, and by every devil in Hell I'll make
+you pay double, double, and double that!"
+
+She turned from him silently and in turning made a little stagger.
+Miller's hand slipped under her elbow; for an instant she found that he
+was supporting her. She stirred away from him in uncontrollable disgust.
+
+A moment later she had pulled herself together; she murmured a
+disjointed sentence of thanks, and moved away towards the scuppers where
+Aylmer still lay motionless, realizing, as she reached it, that the gray
+man was still at her side. He was looking at her keenly, but with an
+impassive gaze which told her nothing.
+
+She bent her face to the white lips. Faintly, but still distinct, she
+felt the breath pass from them. She rose with a little gesture of
+appeal.
+
+"You must help me," she said. "We must get him below."
+
+For a moment he hesitated. Then he passed his arms behind the other's
+shoulders and lifted him. She bent and took his knees. Staggering again
+at first, but with growing steadiness, she helped to half carry, half
+drag him to the companion, into the cabin, to lay him, at last, on the
+floor of the lazaret.
+
+She drew off her jacket and arranged it under his head.
+
+She rose and looked at Miller.
+
+"Now, if they will give me food and water, I will do what I can," she
+said simply. "Quiet is his best chance, absolute quiet."
+
+He gave a little bow of assent.
+
+"We must hope for the best," he answered. "You must rely on me all you
+can; come into Landon's notice as little as possible. I will use my
+influences, such as they are, for the best."
+
+The hot throb of repulsion--of hate, even--throbbed up in her, knowing,
+as she knew, that he was false to her, but she kept her face unmoved.
+She nodded.
+
+"Yes," she answered quietly, "unless--you think my duty is to let
+him--die?"
+
+His imperturbable face lost its calm for a moment. He was genuinely
+startled.
+
+"But no!" he cried quickly. "Things are not as bad as that! The threats
+he used? Those were the results of shock, of delirium. I would prevent
+that--I."
+
+She looked at him very steadily.
+
+"Yes?" she said. "You--a prisoner, like myself. How?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders vaguely.
+
+"He is open to reason," he said. "He could not afford it; I could make
+that plain to him, I have every assurance that I could."
+
+He was looking at her searchingly--frowning, showing dissatisfaction
+with himself for his slip. She was content to let it pass.
+
+"Thank you," she answered. "You give me hope," and truly enough a wild,
+incredulous hope had just arisen in her heart, for her gaze had been
+still on Aylmer's pallid face at her feet.
+
+The gray man still hesitated and then, with the air of one who has
+probed an enigma the solution of which still escaped him, turned and
+passed into the cabin. She heard his footsteps echo along the deck over
+her head.
+
+Aylmer's eyes opened, and then one of them closed again, in a wink!
+
+She laid her finger warningly upon her lips. She bent till her lips
+touched his ear.
+
+"I knew it--I knew it!" she breathed joyfully. "Ah, but you nearly
+spoilt it all. You smiled--I saw the beginning of it--when he made his
+slip, and he might have seen it, too!"
+
+He smiled again.
+
+"The renegade!" he whispered. "I knew it before this last hour; I saw it
+in his face when Landon came here, before. They have some understanding,
+those two. And it was he who betrayed me--with his suggestion about the
+halliards. I heard him, before they let them go!"
+
+"And I!" she answered. "He is against us; we are alone, against them
+all!"
+
+"Where does his profit come in?" he asked, wonderingly. "What arguments
+has Landon used; how can a man like him be the gainer?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"One has met him--in Gibraltar--in society," she said. "But do we know
+anything of him; does any one know?"
+
+He was silent for a moment.
+
+"No," he said, at last. "No one knows. I have heard it spoken of, his
+unknowableness, but no one has supplied a key to the mystery. I think--I
+think if we win out of this I must set machinery to work in
+Gibraltar--to find out."
+
+"If!" she repeated sadly. "If!"
+
+His lips set firmly.
+
+"Not if," he answered resolutely. "When! Do you believe that men like
+Landon win! You, yourself? Didn't you tell him that he would have to
+pay, eventually. I'm going to present the bill--I. I know it; I have it
+as a conviction!"
+
+Her eyes glowed down at him. The dead roots of hope began to sprout in
+her heart. The down-hearted, the _faineant_? Has any natural woman a use
+for such an one? No! Nature made you the leader, they cry to the male.
+For God's sake, behave as one!
+
+She offered no protest, no comment. She did not question his faith; her
+matter-of-factness only asked for detail.
+
+"Meanwhile?" she questioned. "Meanwhile?"
+
+He made a little grimace.
+
+"It is a gray prospect," he admitted. "I lie here, unconscious. I lie
+physically--and by implication--morally. I feign myself as one on the
+lip of extinction. I wait!"
+
+She felt vaguely disappointed.
+
+"You wait--till when?" she asked.
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Till a very old friend comes by," he answered. "She has seldom failed
+me, and then my own laggardness was at fault. They call her
+Opportunity."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE PRISON
+
+
+"What is to be the end?" asked Claire, suddenly, wearily. "What is to be
+the end?"
+
+Aylmer looked up from his pallet on the floor--looked at the
+girl--looked at the walls of bare masonry--looked at the shaft of
+sunlight which slanted through the barred window. For eight and forty
+hours he had lain there, shamming, shamming, shamming. For three days
+previous to his being brought to that place, he had lain as motionless
+in the lazaret of the _Santa Margarita_.
+
+Conceive it--you who walk abroad as you list! Nearly a week of inaction,
+when all the time your blood is coursing healthily in your veins, your
+feet itch for the road, and your wrath, above all, is suffering a
+continual fever for which no remedy is presently available.
+
+The picture, however, had its other side. Could he, in any other
+circumstances, have advanced so far in intimacy with his companion?
+When, in the ordinary intercourse of uneventful life, would the barrier
+which she had raised against him have been flung down? Where else than
+in this island prison of Salicudi would he have seen the glorious vision
+of hope over that barrier's crumbling walls? Dwelling on these matters,
+he was able to answer her pessimism with a genuine smile.
+
+"When I first met you I told myself that I should have to play a waiting
+game," he said. "Well, it is proving itself so, literally."
+
+She flushed faintly.
+
+"You must forgive me," she sighed. "We women are not taught to wait. And
+in America we are allowed to be petulant, you know." She smiled. "You
+Britishers have more sense of discipline. But an end? Surely you
+yourself must want to see one? How long are you to lie there, paralyzed
+for action?"
+
+He was silent for a moment, and his eyes were shadowed.
+
+"It is I who must ask forgiveness," he said at last. "Perhaps--I hardly
+realized what it is--for you."
+
+A throb of compunction stung her. She gave a little cry of protest.
+
+"For me? It is a thousand times worse for you. I have liberty, in a
+sense. They let me walk abroad, even, at times--I am not interfered
+with--I can look out to sea and--and hope. I have you to lean on. But
+you? You lie within these four walls and think, and think. Your only
+support is within yourself. And I am a drag upon you."
+
+And then she turned her face from the sudden passion in his eyes.
+
+"Claire!" he said. "Claire!"
+
+She did not answer in words. She made a little gesture which seemed to
+plead for forbearance, for a postponement to an inevitable but far
+distant morrow. She rose and walked to the window.
+
+"There is a ship passing now," she reported. "Half a mile from land. I
+can see her flag--the Union Jack. A Newcastle collier, I expect, by her
+bulk and her grime. I suppose there are a score of unwashed deck hands
+and heavers in her forecastle who would sweep this island bare of the
+human vermin who infest it if we could let them know our need, if we
+could signal--wave--act! Act? But to go on waiting? To have not so much
+as a plan?"
+
+He rose cautiously.
+
+"There is no one in sight?" he asked.
+
+She looked right and left, keenly suspicious.
+
+"No," she said, at last. "I watched Luigi back to the houses after he
+left our food. He and half a dozen more are at the landing place. Two or
+three are on board the felucca, working her with sweeps into the shelter
+of the little breakwater. Mr. Miller? He is sitting on a boulder,
+watching--and like us, I suppose--waiting. What are we all doing but
+that? Fate is to be the arbiter for all of us. We can offer no
+interference."
+
+He came up beside her, keeping in the shadow and peering cautiously
+between the bars. His glance was directed at the _Santa Margarita_ as
+the toilers at the sweeps slowly worked her to her moorings.
+
+"They are making it the more difficult for us," he said slowly. "While
+she lay out there in the open, she represented the weapon with which we
+might have defeated Fate, if Fate is against us. Inside the breakwater
+the edge of the weapon is blunt. Did Fate read my thoughts?"
+
+She looked at him anxiously.
+
+"You have had a plan?" she asked. "You have not been leaving all to
+chance?"
+
+"Wind--that is all I asked," he said. "A storm, a moonless night, and a
+little luck. If I could have got on board the felucca with you and cut
+her from her moorings, we would have played a deal with Fate then. We
+would have enlisted her on our side, to take us where she willed."
+
+Her eyes grew vivid with hope and with anxiety.
+
+"But to get on board? We are locked in at night, bolted. And those dogs
+of theirs are loose."
+
+"That is it--they are loose," he said. "A few handfuls of food saved and
+we can attract them to the window, and they will be quiet enough when
+they are fed. It is merely a question of the getting out."
+
+"And how?"
+
+He pointed to a corner of the unmorticed wall.
+
+"Their bars are sound enough, their bolts are out of reach of our
+tampering. But the building itself? Its foundations date from the days
+of Augustus, as likely as not. At night, while you slept, I tried its
+stability, course by course. It was in that corner that I found the weak
+spot. The lower stone I can remove at will. The one above it will fall
+when the support of the first is removed. And I put pressure enough on
+to the outer stones to know that a strong effort will thrust them away.
+The road is open, when we choose to take it."
+
+She clapped her hands softly. Her face glowed.
+
+"Why not now?" she cried. "Why not choose the passing of a ship and then
+signal--as you signalled to the torpedo boat?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"A warship is one thing," he objected, "a merchant ship another. We
+should be poising our all on the intelligence of a look-out-man who
+would be scanning the water, not the land, or of a third officer who
+might not know the code international."
+
+She sighed.
+
+"So we wait," she said despondently.
+
+"So we wait," he agreed. "But not for long." He was looking westward at
+the sky.
+
+"You see something?" she said quickly. "What?"
+
+"Wind clouds," he answered. "Cirrus. Fate may be making her preparations
+for to-night."
+
+"To-night?" She repeated the word faintly, incredulously. "I wonder,"
+she said slowly. "I wonder if, after all my yearning for action, I
+shall--be brave when it really comes to--to-night?"
+
+He looked down at her.
+
+"And I?" he said. "Have I as good a chance as you to show courage?"
+
+"You?" she answered wonderingly. "You are a man."
+
+"Yes," he answered. "I am a man. And you, a woman, are dependent on me
+and I am taking you into perils that I can only guess at, dangers that
+lie absolutely in the hands of chance. For which of us is it easiest to
+be brave, you or me?"
+
+Her eyes dropped from his.
+
+"What do you hint?" she temporized. "For me--why should it be easier for
+me? The--the cases are equal, are they not?"
+
+"No," he said quietly. "No, Claire. And you know that they are not. Not
+because you are a woman, but because you are _the_ woman; because you
+are you--and I--am myself--and love you!"
+
+And this time there was a note in his voice which she had not recognized
+before, vibrant, unrestrained, passionate. The thrill of it pulsed
+through her; she felt it in her nerves, her very veins. She flinched
+from it, she gave a tiny pant; the womanly instinct of evasion made her
+draw back from him a startled pace.
+
+"Isn't that the truth?" he asked, his voice hoarse with its intensity.
+"Isn't it easy to be brave for oneself alone--easier than to be brave
+for another?"
+
+She stood looking at him, strangely, doubtfully, the shadow of dumb
+entreaty in her eyes. But in her heart other shadows were fading to
+disclose realities hitherto faintly suspected and half defined. Was this
+the true meaning of the fear which had suddenly been born in the moment
+of hope? Was it for his sake she paused upon the threshold of danger?
+The protective instinct which she had recognized in herself with
+wonder--had that grown into something more? Was it death with him or
+life without him that she pictured as the worst that Fate could give?
+
+The silence grew in tension but she could not break it. What was only
+then revealing itself to her--could she reveal it to him? She drew back
+another pace, she held out her hand as if she warded off the inevitable.
+
+"I cannot tell," she said weakly. "But--but I think I could be brave for
+myself--alone."
+
+He made an exclamation, his arms went out to possess her, his eyes
+shone--
+
+"No!" she cried passionately. "No! Is it fair, is it right to take
+advantage of our position; is it honorable?"
+
+And then she regretted her words in the very speaking of them. The
+passion faded from his face, a shadow veiled his eyes, he made a gesture
+of contrition. And she? With feminine inconsistency she opened her lips
+to undo what she had done, to make her victory defeat.
+
+Again Fate intervened. Aylmer whispered warningly, slipped across the
+flags, and stretched himself upon the pallet. One look through the
+barred window explained his action. A hundred yards away a couple of
+figures were advancing towards the building. She recognized Landon and
+in his companion, Miller, talking vehemently.
+
+She left the window and waited, sitting on the rough stool which was
+placed at the pallet foot.
+
+A minute later the sound of bolts withdrawn and a key in a lock echoed
+under the stone arch. Landon entered alone, debonair, smiling, but with
+eyes which were ominous of intention.
+
+He looked down at the pallet.
+
+"Our sufferer--our patient? Do we perceive no signs of progress?"
+
+There was danger in his voice; she read it unmistakably.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"He is no different," she said apathetically. "He has spoken, once or
+twice. I see no change."
+
+"That is the misfortune of it all," said Landon. "You see no change. Can
+your nursing be at fault--not from want of care, let me say at once, but
+from want of knowledge? Must we call in further advice in consultation?"
+
+His face was white and haggard below the soiled bandage which crossed
+his forehead. The sharpness of his jaw, his sunken cheeks, made of his
+smile a very evil thing. She flinched before it.
+
+"I cannot tell," she answered wearily.
+
+"His movements, now?" grinned Landon. "Do they give no indication of his
+condition? Has he no conscious interests?"
+
+The eyes below the bandage glittered and fear stabbed her suddenly. Were
+they betrayed?
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"You see for yourself," she answered, and made a gesture towards the
+motionless form on the pallet.
+
+Landon laughed.
+
+"No, I do not see," he said. "I am not a physician. I cannot walk to a
+bedside and deliver sentences of death or reprieves to life like the
+miracle mongers of Harley Street. Unconsciousness? How is it diagnosed?
+Sometimes by actual experiment _in corpore vile_, is it not?" He leaned
+over the bed. His hand slipped into a pocket and reappeared holding an
+open penknife. He thrust it suddenly into Aylmer's arm.
+
+She gave a cry of indignation; she seized his hand and dragged him back.
+
+He laughed savagely and tried to fling her off. She threw her whole
+weight upon his wrist, clinging to it.
+
+And then he laughed again, with malignant enjoyment. He changed his
+tactics. He no longer evaded her grip. He jerked her towards him. And
+this time the penknife point found a new sheath. Deliberately he stabbed
+it against her shoulder and--held it there!
+
+She shrieked.
+
+There was a stirring from the pallet bed. With a mighty leap Aylmer was
+on his feet! His face was convulsed; his eyes were lightnings.
+
+For the third time Landon laughed, triumphantly. In the same motion he
+released his prisoner and sent her spinning against Aylmer's
+outstretched arm. He himself was at the door and outside it, slamming
+it, locking it, flinging home bolt after bolt before the two inside had
+recovered from the sudden shock. A moment later he reappeared at the
+window.
+
+"Well, my early convalescent!" he mocked. "Have you no thanks for such a
+sudden recovery? And you, sister-in-law, for such a lesson in the
+healing art? Think of the efforts wasted on that malingerer. Aren't you
+blushing for the ease with which you were deceived?"
+
+And then the twinkle of wicked laughter faded from his eyes. He drew
+near the window bars and glowered down at them evilly.
+
+"Or are you blushing for yourself, you wanton!" he cried. "You who
+deceived me into leaving you with him as a nurse, and knew that he
+needed none. A little paragraph with hints--or more than hints, the
+truth--about such a matter, and where do you stand? Are there society
+rags in London and New York ready to accept that sort of matter? Yes,
+virtuous cousin and sister-in-law, I think there are, I think there
+are!"
+
+Neither of them flinched. They looked at him fixedly and, in the girl's
+case, almost wonderingly. And Landon read the message of her incredulity
+with a chuckle of enjoyment.
+
+"I keep on presenting surprises to you, do I not?" he grinned. "My
+versatility, the quickness with which I seize new points of humor
+impresses you?"
+
+For a moment she was silent. And then, as if a force beyond her control
+forced her to speak, she answered him.
+
+"I did not believe in the possibility of there being a thing as vile as
+yourself," she said. "I did not think God allowed such as you to live!"
+
+The satyr-like grin broadened across his haggard cheeks. He leered down
+at them.
+
+"I revel in it!" he answered. "By the Lord! Till you've tried absolutely
+unrestrained wickedness, till you've thrown off every sort of control,
+till you're one with the devil and proud of it, you don't know what
+enjoyment is!" His eyes glowed; he smote his fist ecstatically on the
+stones. "It's great!" he cried. "Great!"
+
+A gray figure came suddenly into view behind him. Miller's face showed
+white against the shadow of the dusk which was heralding its coming by
+the deepening azure of the sea and sky. And his glance seemed to hold a
+significance which the prisoners were meant to read, but for which they
+had no clue.
+
+Landon heard him and wheeled.
+
+He surveyed him slowly and then he laughed.
+
+"I'm beyond you now, teacher!" he derided. "I used to admire you--the
+callousness, the relentlessness--which you could put into a job! But I'm
+way up above you. Decency had to be part of your stock-in-trade."
+
+He laughed again, his harsh, cackling merriment, and there was a note in
+it which struck a new chord of fear in Claire's heart. It was inhuman,
+unintelligent, this laughter. It fell poignantly, horribly on the ear.
+
+"To-morrow--_manana_!" chuckled Landon. "I'm coming back with all my
+friends. We'll give hours of daylight to the job and, by God! we'll make
+a good one! Think it over; give it your attention through the night! My
+terms, every word of them or--well, try and guess the persuasions I'll
+use. Meditate on them; paint them up in your imaginations and then
+you'll fall short! And as for restraints, remember that in my particular
+case there isn't such a thing, not one!"
+
+He stood staring down at them through a moment of leering
+self-satisfaction, and then slowly, reluctantly, turned away. He took
+Miller's arm and drew him insistently down the path. His evil laughter
+came back to them shrill upon the evening breeze.
+
+Inside their prison the two turned and confronted each other. Then
+Aylmer spoke.
+
+"He has defied God, and the judgment of God has fallen on him. He is
+insane--that is evident! Insane with malice, with his surrender to the
+devil and all his works."
+
+Her lips were parched. She whispered.
+
+"And to-morrow?" she questioned, thickly. "To-morrow--we shall have to
+surrender, too. To him?"
+
+He clenched his fists.
+
+"No!" he said. "No! Not while Fate has given us to-night--to-night!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+PADRE SIGISMONDI
+
+
+The presage of the afternoon sky was amply fulfilled by midnight. The
+western gale howled through the window bars and the sound of the sea's
+thunder rolled up from the beach. For the Mediterranean it was a gale
+beyond the normal, one that had borrowed strength from its Atlantic kin.
+It lashed the green islands of the archipelago with unaccustomed
+violence. The vine poles fell in ranks before its blast; the lava dust
+whirled up in spirals; the pebbles clattered along the face of the
+shingle. And yet there was something strange, noticeable, almost
+ominous, about the tempest. It had none of the northern breath of ice.
+It was a hot wind; in spring or summer, and had it risen in the south,
+one would have called it sirocco and kept in the shadow throughout its
+blowing. But this wind blew from the north and the month was December.
+The islanders mused over the phenomenon debatingly.
+
+Inside the prison the storm muffled sounds which, however, no listener
+was abroad to detect. A common table fork his only implement, Aylmer was
+levering the massive corner-stones inch by inch from their seating. The
+lower one had already been removed, but the upper one, as expected, had
+not fallen from its place. He panted as he put forth his strength upon
+it. The ebb and flow of his pulses swelled in the half-healed scar on
+his temple. Blood was flowing from a few superficial cuts upon his
+fingers. He ground his teeth and tugged at the stone savagely, worrying
+it as a terrier might worry a defiant rat. And then, with an unexpected
+jerk, it fell out upon him bodily. He dropped backwards, the stone's
+weight upon his leg.
+
+He gave a half-muffled cry, not of pain, but of satisfaction. The rest
+was easy; the road was open.
+
+Then, as he panted in the relief of accomplished effort, Fate rebuked
+his satisfaction with a sudden threat. A step sounded coming up the
+gravel.
+
+His temperamental coolness and presence of mind never stood a test
+better. He stood up, raised each stone in quick succession, and placed
+them swiftly, carefully, and silently beneath the coverlet of his
+companion's bed. She flung herself down beside them. He drew his own
+pallet into the corner from which the stones had been removed and lay,
+his face to the wall, the huddle of the bed clothes hiding the opening.
+A moment later a light shone through the window. The light of a lamp
+illuminated a wrinkled Italian face.
+
+The watcher blinked at them suspiciously, grunted, and then with a
+half-articulate expression of satisfaction, turned away. The light
+bobbed slowly off into the distance, flaring and guttering before the
+force of the wind. Inside the prison a sigh went up--a chorussed echo of
+relief.
+
+"Landon is taking no chances," said Aylmer, in a whisper. "We are to be
+visited, at intervals. That is evident."
+
+He heard something like the sound of a sob in the darkness.
+
+"It means defeat--this?" asked Claire. "Fate is setting her face against
+us. We are not even to have our chance!"
+
+"No!" he said grimly. "Fate is not against us. I feel it, I have
+believed it all along. And if she is, then it is our duty to defy her.
+After all, we can use the chief source of danger to defeat suspicion;
+that is easy."
+
+He rose cautiously and plucked the remaining stones from the hole. He
+placed them in his own bed; he arranged matters carefully. And then he
+made a motion towards the new-made opening.
+
+"Will you lead?" he said quietly. "Will you be the first to
+confront--Fate?"
+
+She gave a little gasp.
+
+"I?" she said, and hesitated, fear in her eyes.
+
+"You, if you will," he answered simply. "Make your way out and hide
+yourself in the nearest convenient shadow. Then, if he returns before I
+can join you, await me. If not--" He shrugged his shoulders. "I shall be
+at your heels."
+
+She still paused, and her fingers clenched and unclenched.
+
+"I did not expect--to be--separated," she breathed. "My strength--I did
+not realize it at first--is coming all from you."
+
+His hand went out into the darkness and touched her.
+
+"From now on, it will be used in your service," he said quietly. "For
+you and you alone." She felt the hand quiver. "Whether you ask it or
+not, whether I am to be all to you in the future, or nothing. It will be
+there--for your asking."
+
+And then, because the need of that strength came upon her with a force
+which she could not control, she gripped the protecting hand between her
+fingers and--Fate alone knows why--raised it to her lips. The next
+instant she had slipped past him in the darkness and was drawing herself
+through the opening. She rose to her knees, to her feet. She stood out
+upon the wind-swept earth, free. Free of the material prison behind her.
+Had she not laid upon herself new bonds? It was a thought too new, too
+indefinite, too strangely sweet. The tumult of her feelings was in
+accord with the tumult of the night.
+
+[Illustration: _She gripped the protecting hand between her fingers_]
+
+She stood, expectant, her ears alert for sounds. There was no grating of
+pebbles upon the path. But from the hole at her feet the faint rip of
+clothing torn against the angle of the stone. The next instant Aylmer
+had emerged, but did not rise. His hands, returning to the opening,
+still worked at something within. And then she gave a little gasp. A
+light shone at her feet. It made a tiny, yellow splash in the darkness
+and fell--on Aylmer's face.
+
+Terror paralyzed her; she stood as if turned to stone; her hands
+clenched into her clothing upon her breast. And Aylmer lay as
+motionless, the golden gleam falling directly into his eyes, which did
+not even blink.
+
+A sound broke the stillness--a sound which came from the far side of
+their prison--and the light disappeared. She heard footsteps which
+retreated; she recognized again the grunt which told of another
+inspection made to the inspector's content. But what had saved
+them--what?
+
+Aylmer rose and stood beside her. His hand gently gripped her elbow and
+drew her out into the roar and beat of the tempest. He headed inland;
+the path which the sentinel had taken was the one which led towards the
+shore.
+
+A minute later she breathed her question. And he laughed lightly in the
+darkness. The sound, incongruous as it seemed to her sense of
+ever-menacing fear, thrilled her strangely. If he could laugh, was not
+Fate laughing with him? Was there not a smile on the face of Hope?
+
+"I was only just through the hole when he came, when he flashed his
+lantern at what he supposed was my body, recumbent on the bed. I was
+holding up the bed clothes _from outside_; I had not had time to shove
+the stones back into place."
+
+She shuddered at the nearness of the hazard. Supposing the man had come
+at the very moment of escape--supposing?
+
+"But the light?" she protested. "The light shone upon your face!"
+
+He laughed again.
+
+"The bed clothes had a hole in them!" he said. "I held them up into the
+form of human shoulders, and through a rent his lantern beat directly on
+my face! He could not, of course, see me, but I got a good view of him.
+It was Luigi himself, this time. Has Fate been whispering to him, do you
+think? Has she made him suspicious?"
+
+She stumbled and caught at him to steady herself. He looked down in
+sudden, quick compunction.
+
+"It has been too much for you!" he said anxiously. "You are feeling
+faint?"
+
+"No!" she said quietly. "I am trying to think of it as a nightmare from
+which I shall wake directly, but it is real! Whenever that comes home to
+me it--it is a pain. Well, it will not be a long ordeal now, will it? We
+meet Fate at the landing stage, and she will give her decision. Can we
+unmoor the _Santa Margarita_ from inside the breakwater, or can we not?
+She will know."
+
+He nodded.
+
+"In five minutes we, too, shall know. We are circling for the Marina
+now. A couple of hundred yards and we shall be there!"
+
+They strode on into the darkness, with eyes and ears alert. They heard
+the battling of the waves against the stones of the tiny pier, but what
+they did not hear was the sound of singing cordage in the felucca's
+rigging.
+
+Aylmer halted with a sudden, muffled exclamation.
+
+"They have unshipped the mast!" he cried sharply, and this time she
+recognized, even in his voice, the note of defeat.
+
+She echoed his exclamation; she followed at his heels as he ran out upon
+the little breakwater. No, there had been no room for mistake. The great
+mast with its cross spar lay along the stone flags. The hull was snugly
+berthed alongside it, within the tiny harbor. The dingy? There was none;
+they had cast it loose when they fled from the torpedo boat through the
+island channel.
+
+For a moment he did not speak. He stood, looking silently at the
+dismantled boat, the raging sea, the swinging lights of a passing
+steamer. Then he turned and shook his head.
+
+"To step that mast into place again is beyond one man's strength," he
+said. "To fling ourselves out into that whirl on a mastless hull is to
+court death inevitably. What is the alternative? We could stand in front
+of the shed here, screened from view inland, and signal some passing
+vessel with flares, if we had the means of making a light. That would
+not be a good chance, but it has possibilities."
+
+"And I have matches!" she said eagerly. "I have my chatelaine still. I
+have even my purse yet. So far they have not robbed me."
+
+He turned as she spoke and without comment ran back across the shingle.
+He began to pluck handfuls of the dry, bent grass which found a sparse
+livelihood in the belt of sand between the shore and the vineyards. He
+returned, rummaged among the litter around the shed, broke up some
+stray pieces of driftwood into chips, and thrust a lighted match among
+the bents. A flame shot up, passed from the tinder to the wood, and
+within a minute was a well-lit fire. He twisted the remaining handfuls
+of grass into spirals, wetted them slightly in the sea, and held them to
+the flame.
+
+They burnt slowly with a red glow, as he swung them to and fro in the
+wind; in dashes, in dots, in circles, he spelled messages into the
+night, but no answering lantern or rocket came from the sea. And she
+watched apathetically. For her hope was dead again, the hand of Fate had
+closed. This was action; this helped them to avoid thinking, to avert
+anticipation, but success was a matter outside her calculations. The
+sense of nightmare closed down upon her again. The storm, the red
+flashes against the purple darkness, the wild unaccustomedness of
+everything heightened the illusion. But when would she wake? Ah, when
+would she wake?
+
+And then--she rubbed her eyes. A light--surely this was no freak of her
+fevered eyesight?--danced into view within a couple of hundred yards of
+the shore. For a moment it swung to the lift and surge of the waves
+alone, but a moment later it rose half a dozen feet into the air, and
+flashed and circled as the charred torch in Aylmer's hand was
+circling--an answer to their message of despair. She gasped with
+eagerness; she cried aloud.
+
+Was it fancy or did another cry reach them through the thunder of the
+waves?
+
+The light stayed motionless for an instant, and then swung towards them.
+Whatever vessel was bearing it had turned its prow towards the shore.
+Aylmer caught up another glowing handful of bents and ran out to the
+breakwater's end. Claire's heart beat in suffocating throbs as she
+followed.
+
+Again a cry reached them, and Aylmer waved his beacon vigorously. A
+sudden shaft of moonlight sank through a rift in the flying clouds.
+
+They saw it then--a dark mass which plunged and heaved among the white
+crests, and drifted nearer and nearer. There was no sail set, but they
+could see the rise and fall of a couple of great oars which steadied the
+boat as it advanced by drifting only. It was less than a cable length
+distant now, passing through the ring of rocks which guarded the harbor
+entrance.
+
+They held their breath. Ten seconds would do it, but ten seconds held an
+infinitude of possibilities. If the boat broached to, if its prow,
+indeed, deflected a couple of yards from the course, would not that give
+Fate a chance to fling her scorn upon their rising hopes? Their eyes
+were strained. Claire's hand was clenched till her nails seemed to sink
+into the flesh of her palm. And then she gave a sigh of relief. The boat
+had passed the outer rock, was heading straight for the inner harbor and
+the calm.
+
+Fate laughed harshly.
+
+A gust stormed in from the sea, caught the boat's prow, swung it, caused
+the port side rower to meet its strength too swiftly with his own. They
+heard a crack--heard it distinctly above the uproars of the gale. The
+oar had broken between the thole-pins; the rower was down.
+
+There was another crashing sound, louder this time, and menacing. A
+great sea raced beneath the laboring keel, lifted it, shook it, and
+flung it aside, full upon the rock. The white gleam of the new-made
+splinters reached them through the smother of the foam fifty yards away.
+
+Aylmer cried out and raced back along the stones. His hands plucked at
+the cordage which was folded about the felucca's mast, and drew out a
+rope. He came back at speed, unwinding the coils as he came. He thrust
+the loose end into her hands.
+
+"Get a purchase against a stone and then hold on--hold on!" he ordered.
+He flung off his coat.
+
+She cried out in protest; she clung to him.
+
+"No!" she cried. "No!"
+
+Very gently, very firmly, her hand was drawn aside. He bent over her;
+something touched faintly--very faintly--her lips. The next instant she
+was alone. He had leaped--far out into the grip of the tide.
+
+She caught her breath and clutched the rope; she flung herself down and
+wedged her limbs behind a boulder. Fate was relentless, she told
+herself, was cruel beyond even her darkest anticipations. For now her
+one support was to be denied her; she was to be left alone. She set her
+lips grimly. No, she would never see Aylmer again, but she would defy
+Fate! She was to be crushed, but she would go down fighting; she would
+be worthy of herself--and of him.
+
+The vagrant shaft of moonlight was gone again; the darkness was
+well-nigh impenetrable. The rope swung between her fingers unstraining.
+The minutes passed one by one; the tension of expectancy plucked at her
+nerves; she shivered, but not with cold. Even if it was the worst that
+was to come upon her she wanted to know--to know.
+
+The rope grew taut.
+
+It was as if an electric shock thrilled her. She braced herself against
+the stone, and her muscles tightened; slowly, using her strength to its
+utmost but with steady effort, she began to haul it in foot by foot. It
+came heavily but unceasingly, the coils unwinding fathom after fathom
+at her side.
+
+And then the strain ceased as suddenly as it had begun. A voice hailed
+her out of the darkness, almost at her feet. A dark bulk rose at the
+breakwater's edge.
+
+Aylmer staggered towards her and laid something on the stones--something
+which stirred uneasily but unavailingly, clogged, as it seemed, by the
+weight of its sodden clothing.
+
+She knelt beside it. She brushed the lank hair from a dripping face.
+
+Aylmer waved her back.
+
+"There is another!" he shouted. "Hold on if you can! Hold on!" and so
+plunged back into the surf. For the second time she braced herself to
+endure the strain--to wait--to agonize with expectation. And again Fate
+played with her, racked her between hope and fear, drew out the strain
+and then, as suddenly, relaxed it. Aylmer crept out upon the stones,
+gasping, doggedly clinging to a new burden.
+
+This time it was the bearer who staggered and fell, the burden who rose
+unsteadily, and peered into his rescuer's face.
+
+She dropped upon her knees beside him. Pale, clean-cut ascetic features
+were lifted to hers. Two dark brown eyes inspected her with startled
+incredulity.
+
+And then the man rose and--the act was instinctive, it was
+obvious--doffed his hat.
+
+"Signora," he said in Italian. "Signora! This is Salicudi, is it not? I
+am at a loss--I do not understand."
+
+For a moment she hesitated, looking at him. The long black garment which
+clung about him reached to his feet. Suddenly she recognized it, and,
+with recognition, a little cry escaped her. It was a _soutane_. And
+this was no sailor. She was confronted by a priest.
+
+As she opened her lips to find a reply, something clattered behind her;
+something rushed, calling upon the names of innumerable saints, out of
+the darkness, and seized her shoulder. A harsh voice rang into the
+echoes of the night.
+
+"To me--to me, all of you! They are escaping! Blood of My Lady, the
+prisoners are loose!"
+
+The man in the soutane whirled fiercely upon the newcomer. And as he
+turned the moon broke through the scurry of the drift and fell upon the
+group in cold brilliance.
+
+"Prisoners!" The voice was incredulous, wrathful, and above all full of
+command. "Prisoners! You speak of--whom?"
+
+The hand upon Claire's shoulder dropped. Her captor fell away as if
+struck by a physical blow.
+
+"Padre Sigi!" he stammered, and his voice was convincing of his
+amazement. "Padre Sigi!"
+
+The other nodded imperiously.
+
+"Padre Sigismondi," he agreed. "At your service, my good Luigi. At your
+service!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+LUIGI'S HOSPITALITY
+
+
+The smuggler's eyes expressed the limits of amazement. He stared at the
+newcomer. He turned his glance to Aylmer, as if he sought information
+there. He brought it back and focussed it upon the dripping _soutane_.
+He made inarticulate noises of incredulity; he flung up his hands with
+gestures of bewilderment.
+
+"You arrive--how, reverend father?" he cried. "What have you used? The
+wings of a bird, the fins of a fish?"
+
+"The eyes of a God-fearing priest," retorted Padre Sigismondi. "I saw
+signals being flashed from your island. With Emmanuele here," he pointed
+to the dripping figure which still lay upon the stones, "I was passing
+your abode of sin on my way to Stromboli. I had, in fact, no choice--I
+was being blown there. I saw the signals, I say, but read no meaning in
+them. Some unconfessed wretch needs extreme unction, say I to myself,
+and steered among the teeth of your reefs. One of our sweeps broke at a
+critical moment. This cavalier here leaped in to our rescue. I have not
+properly thanked him yet because I am awaiting explanation of the words
+I heard as you thrust yourself upon us. Prisoners, did you say? It must
+be a cataclysm of morality which has made you a gaoler or a judge, my
+wonderful Luigi."
+
+The smuggler shivered and blenched.
+
+"This man and this woman are in a sense prisoners," he allowed. "They
+are not on good terms with our other--guests. We have had to restrain
+their liberties."
+
+Padre Sigismondi regarded him fixedly. The unfortunate Luigi's tongue
+protruded with nervousness; his cheek muscles twitched. The priest
+shrugged his shoulders as he turned to Aylmer.
+
+"I arrive unceremoniously," he smiled, "but not inopportunely, it seems.
+May I have your version of the extraordinary circumstances in which I
+find the Signora and yourself, Signor?"
+
+Aylmer smiled back at him.
+
+"They are simple enough, father," he answered. "We are prisoners; there
+is no need for our friend here to beat about the bush. At the
+instigation of--of a certain enemy of ours, in whose pay the good Luigi
+finds himself, we were kidnapped from the port of Melilla and brought
+here. It was our signals you saw. May I add my profound regrets at the
+misfortune you experienced in answering them?"
+
+"The Church is a boat to the bad, but possibly a gainer in
+righteousness," said the other. "I may be the means of preventing some
+irretrievable sin on the part of these islanders. You were being held to
+ransom, do I understand?"
+
+The dripping figure at his feet stirred and rose weakly to a standing
+posture. A cackle of laughter came from between the chattering teeth.
+
+"The gaol-bird as gaoler--eh, but that is a rib-rending jest, Luigi. You
+have imagination, _amico_, imagination and, it seems, opportunity. You
+will go far!"
+
+The sailor turned his wrinkled face on the abashed smuggler; his white
+teeth flashed a prodigious smile. He seemed to find nothing
+disconcerting in the situation, but desired to show quickness in seizing
+its points of humor.
+
+"He will certainly go far, my good Emmanuele," agreed Padre Sigismondi,
+drily. "As far as the penal station on Procida if I am not hugely
+mistaken, or unless he shows a most improbable repentance. What have we
+here? Other warders in this private penitentiary?"
+
+Footsteps clattered along the tiny causeway. With a rush, half a dozen
+figures swept up to them through the moonlight, Landon at their head.
+This was the answer to Signor Luigi's frantic shouts.
+
+The rush wavered, hesitated, came to a halt. The islanders recognized
+the grim, aggressive form in the _soutane_ with sharp exclamations of
+amazement and alarm. Landon, without their experience, felt the
+impalpable infection of their fear. He, too, halted, staring
+mistrustfully at the priest and his companions.
+
+He shook Luigi by the elbow.
+
+"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded.
+
+The smuggler made a deferential outward movement of his palms.
+
+"It is a visit, an unexpected visit, from our--our vicar," he explained.
+"It is the Padre Sigi--Sigismondi, I should say."
+
+The padre stepped forward and spoke in crisp, imperturbable tones.
+
+"I am peripatetic confessor to these islands, Signor," he said. "There
+is a bitter need of six priests to each island, rather than six islands
+to a priest. It is an abode of wickedness, this. That, perhaps, has not
+been hidden from you?"
+
+Landon kept a moment's silence. Then he smiled.
+
+"I confess that I have not augmented its morality, in bulk, Signor," he
+said. "In fact, by adding the two who stand behind you to its
+population, I have done far otherwise. Instead of being where you find
+them, they should be under lock and key."
+
+"Why?" demanded the priest, laconically.
+
+"Because they robbed me," answered Landon. "Because, for wicked purposes
+of their own, they took from me--not gold, but what is beyond the price
+of gold or buying--my only son."
+
+"You accuse them of--kidnapping?" The good man's voice was coldly
+incredulous.
+
+Landon made a gesture of assent.
+
+"Of that and of attempted murder. They hired Moorish desperadoes to
+attack me, to ride me down."
+
+"And you have made of yourself not only prosecutor, but judge, jury, and
+keeper of their prison?"
+
+"These things happened in Africa, outside civilized jurisdiction. Was I
+to lack justice when it lay in the hollow of my hand?"
+
+"Are there no consular courts? If not, you cannot bring your private
+cause to private verdict in the dominions of the King of Italy, however
+bad his title to the throne."
+
+"Your reverence is a Legitimist?" grinned Landon.
+
+"In every sense of the word, Signor. My sense of legitimacy finds your
+arguments unsound."
+
+He looked at Claire with an apologetic bow.
+
+"And as a matter of fact, Signora, I have not heard your statement. How
+does it vary from this gentleman's? Or does it, perhaps, corroborate
+it?"
+
+She looked at him very steadily.
+
+"The man to whom you have been talking," she said slowly, "is, I think,
+Signor, the worst man whom God permits to live."
+
+He made a little gesture of protest.
+
+"You have suffered at his hands--is that it? But your sentence is too
+sweeping a one, is it not? Surely, Signora, surely?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"No!" she said determinedly. "Traitor, forger, thief--we know him to be
+all these. And last, but not least, murderer. A murderer of souls. I do
+not know if he has taken a fellow creature's life, but for five years he
+racked into the numbness of despair the soul of my sister, who was his
+wife."
+
+He made a tiny exclamation of sympathy; he held up his hand as if he put
+away from him a spectre of evil.
+
+He looked back to Landon.
+
+"You have heard, Signor?" he said.
+
+"I have heard," said Landon, easily. "As a tale it has no originality
+and therefore little interest for me. I have heard it a hundred times.
+Your reverence found fault, a moment back, with my self-assumed status
+of judge. Are you going to borrow the cloak which you do not permit me
+to wear? You have heard both sides. To what proof can you refer a
+decision?"
+
+The long, lean figure drew itself up very rigidly.
+
+"I am a sinful man myself, Signor. I make no decisions. But I have been
+appealed to, as I understand, by those whom I find in your power. I
+shall not permit your restraint of them to continue. You can refer any
+grievance you have against them to properly constituted tribunals over
+there." He lifted his arm and pointed south to where storm and night hid
+Sicily.
+
+He turned to Luigi.
+
+"Emmanuele and I are, as you see, sodden to the skin. It may reach your
+great intelligence, by degrees, that we need warmth and refreshment."
+
+The smuggler made an apologetic gesture.
+
+"But certainly, Reverenza. There is in the house a fire. My poor
+provisions are at your service."
+
+The priest looked towards Claire with another courtly doffing of his
+hat.
+
+"And you, Signora, and you, Signor, will add to my felicity by sharing
+both with me?"
+
+She looked at him gravely.
+
+"They have not starved us; we had food a couple of hours ago," she said.
+"But your company, here and to the mainland, is a boon straight from the
+hand of God."
+
+He inclined his head in assent.
+
+"I am His servant, Signora," he said. "I thank Him for permitting me to
+serve Him, in serving you. Shall we make our way to the house? The hour
+must be close on midnight."
+
+He made a motion towards the path. He looked imperturbably at Landon,
+who, with Muhammed, still stood astride it.
+
+"You appear to be blocking the lady's way, Signor," he said. "Not
+intentionally, I dare to hope."
+
+Landon shrugged his shoulders and drew aside.
+
+"On the contrary, your reverence. Not for worlds would I stand between
+you and refreshment--and sleep."
+
+He looked at Muhammed with a half-sardonic, half-inquiring gaze as he
+spoke. And there was a faintly emphasized inflection on the last two
+words.
+
+The Moor looked back at him impassively, and then drew aside with an
+obsequious droop of the head.
+
+But to Claire and, to a less extent to Aylmer, there was a queer,
+indefinite sense of something which impended--something which racked
+them with suspicion in the attitude of those about them. Landon's
+surrender was too facile; Luigi's deference too pliant; Muhammed's
+apathetic eyes were never less convincing of guilelessness. When they
+reached the cottage, and stood with Padre Sigismondi before the blaze in
+the great open hearth and watched the quick preparations which were
+being made to improvise a meal, the unreality of their surroundings
+seemed to grow in significance. No one interfered with them; no one even
+noticed them. Luigi set the table; Muhammed busied himself with the
+coffee-pot; Landon held the father's dripping garments to the blaze
+while their owner assumed a sailor's trousers and jersey in an adjoining
+room. It was too incredible, this sudden turning of tables. They looked
+at each other doubtfully.
+
+Their speculations received a sudden interruption. The door opened to
+admit Miller.
+
+He was half dressed. He blinked--it was apparent that he and sleep had
+parted company a short half minute before.
+
+"I heard noises," he said, and then his glance fell upon the two who
+stood near the fireplace, side by side. His usual phlegm seemed to
+desert him. He gave an exclamation.
+
+"You!" he cried. "You!"
+
+He wheeled towards Landon.
+
+"Will you explain?" he cried harshly. "What is happening?"
+
+"I entertain guests--a small, but select, family party," grinned Landon.
+
+The gray man stared at him with still unappeased surprise. Then,
+suddenly, his face cleared. He looked at Claire; he looked on beyond her
+to Aylmer.
+
+"You have met his terms? You see the hopelessness of it all; you have
+been wise?"
+
+His voice was smooth, now, and had lost its harsh tones of amazement. He
+purred his approbation.
+
+Aylmer laughed.
+
+"We have been wise, my dear Miller," he agreed. He laughed again as
+Padre Sigismondi briskly entered the room. He had the aspect of an
+ascetic but experienced mariner in his new garb. He bowed to Miller
+courteously but inquiringly. The inquiry, it was to be noticed, was
+directed in part towards Aylmer and his companion.
+
+But Aylmer offered no introduction. He drew forward a chair, and placed
+it in front of the fire.
+
+"A good roasting after your immersion? Let me prescribe that," he said.
+
+The priest looked at him and then gave a cry of commiseration.
+
+"But you yourself, Signor--you remain in your sodden clothes?"
+
+"For a very simple reason, father," said Aylmer, smiling. "I was taken
+prisoner, but not my luggage. I stand up in my belongings."
+
+The house began to resound with the recriminations which the priest
+addressed to Luigi. Why had he not provided the cavalier with a suitable
+change of raiment while his own clothes dried? Why had he not done this;
+why had he not done that?
+
+The smuggler ran to and fro distractedly. A jersey came from one press.
+A shirt from another. A cupboard supplied trousers; a deplorable collar
+which had had no recent acquaintance with a laundry was even offered and
+declined. Aylmer retired into the adjoining room, and Landon, on his
+return, with imperturbable aplomb received and began to dry the wet
+clothes he had taken off. Miller reviewed these proceedings with
+unqualified amazement. Offered no key to the position, he proceeded to
+probe for one.
+
+"Your reverence has voyaged far?" he hazarded.
+
+"More miles than I care to remember, Signor," said the other,
+courteously. "But ever, alas, in a circle. My peregrinations have been
+bounded, ever since my ordination, by Naples on the north and Palermo or
+Messina in the south. I see much earth and sky and water, especially the
+latter, but I add nothing to geography. I am amphibious, that is all."
+
+His "ordination"? The gleam of discovery woke in Miller's eyes. A
+priest, was it? But the presence of Aylmer and Miss Van Arlen--how was
+that to be explained? And how far had the newcomer gauged the situation.
+
+"Your reverence finds in us unexpected additions to your flock," he
+said. "The population of Salicudi has increased since you last visited
+it."
+
+"To my very natural satisfaction," said Sigismondi, imperturbably. He
+looked at the steaming bowl of polenta and the coffee-pot which Luigi
+had set upon the table. Emmanuele came in, wrapped in a sheepskin coat
+and grinning at the food expectantly. His master greeted him with a nod.
+"It appears that we are to feast and feast alone, my son," he said.
+"These friends of ours insist on having dined two hours ago. May the
+Blessed bless to us this refreshment."
+
+He seated himself and began to eat slowly, but with relish.
+
+"Heat is a great tonic," he remarked reflectively. "The contents of this
+bowl and, above all, of this admirable coffee-pot, will erase the
+remembrance of the discomforts of the night. And then sleep, but not too
+much of it. Luigi, my friend, we must be off at dawn."
+
+The smuggler's eyebrows rose into arcs.
+
+"How, Reverence?" he exclaimed. "At dawn, and whither, if you please?"
+
+"By way of Celsa, where an infant awaits baptism--and my friends, I dare
+to hope, will excuse the short delay--to Messina. Where else, my good
+Luigi? That surely is the place where your guests can most conveniently
+adjust their misunderstandings."
+
+The smuggler shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"I am at your service, father," he said, and looked vacantly at the
+opposite wall. But the tail of his eye, Aylmer noted, was on Landon. Was
+there a message, or inquiry, in it?
+
+"All of us," said Landon, smoothly, "must find your proposition a very
+practical one. May I hasten to add my approval of it?"
+
+He looked smilingly at Aylmer, at Claire, lastly at Muhammed. The
+Moor--was it Aylmer's fancy?--answered with a tiny nod. There was
+sarcasm in this glance of Landon's; there was menace; there was--so
+Aylmer told himself--malignant triumph.
+
+Padre Sigismondi nodded absently. He presented his coffee-cup to the
+Moor to be refilled, and as the brown liquid ran from the spout, watched
+it with a slow, stolid abstraction. His mental alertness seemed to be
+relaxing with physical refreshment. He offered no further remarks; he
+plied his spoon upon the polenta slowly, and yet more slowly.
+
+Suddenly Emmanuele, the sailor, dropped his cup in the act of taking a
+more than usually copious draught. He looked stupidly at the coarse
+crockery as it broke upon the floor.
+
+Sigismondi shook a finger at him, a finger which, somehow, he seemed to
+have under no proper command. "Careless one!" he mumbled. "Careless one!
+Where are your manners?" And then, suddenly, as if he heaved back a
+weight, he rose unsteadily to his feet. He threatened Luigi with his
+clenched fist.
+
+"Traitorous dog!" he cried, and fell senseless to the floor.
+
+His companion stared at him stupidly, plunged forward as if to bring him
+aid, and then fell, too, at his feet. The pair lay where they had
+fallen, unmoving.
+
+At the back of the room Landon broke out into pleasant laughter.
+
+Aylmer darted forward and bent to shake Sigismondi fiercely by the
+shoulder. Claire cried to him warningly.
+
+Too late!
+
+Landon and Luigi had flung themselves upon him from behind. Muhammed had
+dropped a looped cord across his shoulders. There was a moment's
+confusion--the corner of the table smashed under a chance blow--and then
+stillness. Lashed with cords into rigidity, Aylmer lay upon the planks,
+and Landon, gazing down, spat upon his upturned face.
+
+"You clever fool!" he derided. "To think to have cornered me--me!"
+
+He looked rapidly at his watch and turned to Luigi.
+
+"It is five hours to dawn," he said. "Where is it we are to take them?
+There is no possibility for delay?"
+
+The smuggler threw out his hands with an air of fatalism.
+
+"The headquarters of the Society--there is no other place!" he said.
+"With this wind, four hours or less will see us there. They will charge
+a commission; you will have to bear with that. But we shall have perfect
+privacy and, if you will, perfected means of dealing with this man's
+obstinacy. And there will be adepts, who will give you their assistance
+for the pleasure of the thing."
+
+Landon nodded.
+
+"Do you hear, my friend, do you hear?" he cried, thrusting his foot
+against Aylmer's cheek. "You have wriggled well in my coils--I grant you
+that. You have twisted and, for the moment, escape seemed open--wide
+open--before you. But against me? No one prevails there, no one!"
+
+"One may--yet."
+
+The voice was Claire's. Landon wheeled towards her.
+
+"That shows a very determined optimism, sister-in-law," he said. "And
+who, if the knowledge is not privileged?"
+
+"God," she said quietly, and met his eyes unflinchingly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+FATE'S FINAL WORD
+
+
+Storm, darkness, despair--these had been the sole comrades for the two
+who lay bound in their old quarters in the _Santa Margarita's_ lazaret.
+Within a few minutes of the moment in which Padre Sigismondi had
+succumbed to the islander's treacherous hospitality, those who had
+sought his protection had been prisoners once more, and the felucca's
+mast had been stepped anew. For three hours it had bent before the
+strength of the northern wind--the hot, oppressive breath which seemed
+to blow no longer from Nature's lips but in her very face. For it was an
+unnatural wind--in temperature, in the quarter from which it came, in
+dampness. The rigging slackened in the humid gusts, but the great sail
+bellied out magnificently. They had torn across the broad waste of
+waters at racing speed. Captain Luigi announced with legitimate pride
+that they had come a matter of five and fifty kilometres. The land
+loomed up before them mountainously a short five miles away.
+
+Landon peered into the darkness. Lights shone far to the left of their
+position--lights in rows, lights white, lights dusky orange, and far
+beyond the main mass of the illumination one red star which winked in
+solemn intervals.
+
+"Messina," explained Luigi, tersely. "The red beam? That is the Faro."
+
+"And we land where?" asked Landon.
+
+"Here, if the Holy Mother gives us her protection," said the skipper,
+and pointed straight ahead. "In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred there
+is no difficulty about it. The port police--there are three of them--are
+cousins of my own and, it is needless to say, controlled by the Society.
+In fifteen minutes you will see."
+
+"The hundredth chance?" said Landon. "That is--?"
+
+"The Carbineers, Signor. Or rather one Carbineer--Sergeant Pinale, who
+has been at the bottom of many an honest contrabandist's misfortune.
+_Brutta bestia!_ He will not keep to any ordered sequence in his goings
+and comings. But the men of the Society will know. If they answer our
+signals, all is well."
+
+Landon looked at him debatingly.
+
+"Who is to answer signals at this hour of the night, my good Luigi? Your
+colleagues will be in their more or less virtuous beds."
+
+The smuggler smiled a superior smile.
+
+"The Society never sleeps, Signor, and it has trained the men in its
+ranks to remember as much. High on the blank wall of hill above the port
+is a watch-tower, though only a private dwelling-house to all seeming.
+There is a need for the sons of the Mafia to have an open door into
+Sicily at any moment of the day or night."
+
+He called one of the hands to the tiller as he finished speaking and
+went forward. He came back, holding a ship's lantern. There were wings
+of glass on hinges on either side of it--one red, one green.
+
+He knelt and busied himself in lighting it in the shelter of the
+companion. The breeze had driven them right in under the shadow of the
+land by now. The steep above the shore seemed almost to overhang them.
+Here and there a faint oil lamp flickered along the Marina; a larger,
+nearer, and brighter gleam was evidence of a tiny jetty which was washed
+by waves which were dwindling under the protection of the land.
+
+Luigi lifted his lamp and held it clear of the companion. Rapidly he
+shut the green shield over the untinted glass, as rapidly opened it
+again, shut the red wing twice in quick succession, and finally left the
+green signal closed.
+
+Landon's eyes probed the darkness. His companion stood silent, his face
+raised towards the hill. There was no apprehension in his attitude, only
+expectancy.
+
+Quite suddenly it seemed that the wind had dropped. The shelter of the
+shore might account for this in part, Landon mused, but surely not
+altogether. It was weird, in a sense, this abrupt alternation to perfect
+stillness after the uproars of the outer seas, but it was not
+unpleasant. It gave one a sense of relaxation; but the heat, untempered
+by the faintest breath of air, was incredibly oppressive. December was
+aping the temperatures of August.
+
+Luigi sighed contentedly and spoke.
+
+"All is well, Signor. It remains to get our merchandise ashore."
+
+Landon became aware of a blue speck of light in the darkness--a speck
+which wavered, grew to a suddenly unexpected point of brightness and
+disappeared. So quickly did it come and go, so evanescent was its
+effect, that none but those who searched for it would have been likely
+to give its appearance a second thought. It might have been caused by
+the passing of a candle behind one of the many panes of frosted glass
+which disfigure Italian villas in _villeggiatura_.
+
+Luigi gave an order. The two deck hands clutched the halliards. The sail
+was lowered. A moment later the anchor set the ripples herding towards
+the shore as it plunged into the calm below the jetty. Landon and his
+companion descended to the cabin.
+
+Stretched on a bunk was Miller, sleeping the sleep of the justly tired.
+He roused himself at their touch and sat up. He looked about him
+meditatively.
+
+"The wind has dropped, absolutely?" he said. "Since when?"
+
+"Half an hour ago. We are in port," said Landon. "We are ready to land,
+when you will."
+
+The gray man smoothed the creases in his gray coat.
+
+"When _I_ will?" he repeated. "I am a prisoner--the captive of your bow
+and spear." He smiled with sombre sarcasm.
+
+"That position is to be maintained?" asked Landon.
+
+"Naturally. Your cousin may make my continued residence in Gibraltar
+well-nigh impossible, otherwise."
+
+"My cousin?" Landon repeated the words with a certain doubtfulness. "He
+is my cousin," he said slowly, "and we sha'n't break one of his blood
+except in one way. It's the girl, remember, that is our strong suit.
+There's to be no bleating about that. To win, the trick has to be taken
+with her alone."
+
+Miller nodded woodenly.
+
+"If I had the inclination to interfere, I have not the power," he said.
+"Do you forget that I am a prisoner, like herself?"
+
+"Yes," said Landon, and there was more than doubt in his expression
+this time, there was suspicion. "I forget it all the time. I want your
+assurance that _you_ won't!"
+
+Miller made a gesture of assent.
+
+"Let's get on," he said. "I understand that it's within a couple of
+hours of dawn."
+
+For an instant Landon hesitated. Then, with Luigi at his heels, he
+entered the lazaret. Neither of them spoke. They bent and lifted Aylmer
+methodically, holding him by his shoulders and his lashed ankles. They
+bore him on deck. They gagged him with the cork float of a fishing-net
+and left him, stark and motionless as a log. They turned back to the
+cabin, and a minute later placed Claire Van Arlen beside him, as
+helpless as himself.
+
+The dingy--a new one, picked up in the island--was lowered. The
+prisoners were thrust beneath the seats. A deck hand and Muhammed took
+their places at the oars. Luigi steered; the child, half asleep and
+wrapped in a blanket, drowsed at his feet. Miller and Landon sat on the
+thwarts.
+
+The two rowers dipped their oars without splashing in long, slow
+strokes. The thole-pins were muffled with rags. The boat stole along in
+the shadow of the jetty into the darkness which hid the port. It was
+noiseless, ghost-like, this entry into the little haven. To the two dumb
+prisoners who lay along the bottom of the boat it was ominous of hope
+entirely lost.
+
+They stifled under the cloaks which hid them; the perspiration dripped
+from the rowers, despite the unhurried nature of their work. The weight
+of a dozen atmospheres seemed to have replaced the exhilarating breath
+which Sicily flings seaward from her sun-brimmed shores. Luigi, at the
+helm, gasped and passed his hand across his eyes.
+
+"Thunder in December! Not natural, Signor, but that is what we must
+expect. I suffocate. _Per Dio!_ The bay is an oven."
+
+He let the prow nose in towards the jetty. Moored boats began to appear
+dimly, right and left of them. The lamplight from the Marina showed an
+empty quay. Luigi steered for the shadow cast by a shed, and took the
+ground silently on a strand of mud and garbage.
+
+The deck hand drew in his oar and skipped nimbly ashore. Muhammed
+followed him. They both laid their hands upon the painter. They bent
+their backs to haul.
+
+Two shadows appeared right and left of them, shadows which seemed to
+have detached themselves from the framework of the shed. Something
+clicked. A yellow beam flared out, full on Luigi's face.
+
+He gasped, he yelled.
+
+"God's Mother--the Carbineers!"
+
+Landon leaped to his feet with a curse. He seized an oar; he thrust with
+all his strength at the mud. And at the same moment the two on the
+shore, struggling in their captor's hands, let fall the painter. The
+boat shot out stern foremost into deep water.
+
+From the shore came the sound of a struggle and then Muhammed's voice,
+shrill in explanation.
+
+"_Signori! Signori!_ I am not a contrabandist! I am a tourist; I can
+prove it; I wish to offer no resistance; I place myself in your hands,
+freely."
+
+There was a grim laugh, and then the yellow beam of light which had been
+withdrawn while the struggle proceeded, flung out its level rays again
+and illuminated the boat.
+
+"Surrender, Luigi!" shouted a stern voice. There was another click.
+"Surrender, _stupido_! I have you covered; I give you five seconds
+before I fire!"
+
+The shrill voice of the captured sailor reinforced the argument.
+
+"It is over--finished," he shouted pessimistically. "It is _Pinale_;
+there is nothing more to be done!"
+
+Luigi groaned and then flung up his hands.
+
+"I give in!" he cried, and burst into a storm of hysterical sobs. "It
+means Procida--this," he wept. "It means years in chains; it means half
+the rest of my life snatched from me." He turned and smote at Landon in
+the darkness. "I owe it to you, tempter!" he yelled. "Accursed of God,
+you led me into this!"
+
+Landon stumbled in his surprise and then leaped at him like a cat. There
+was a shrill scream from the child as the swaying pair rolled down upon
+the stern sheets, gripping, each of them, for the other's throat. The
+boat rocked violently.
+
+Again the stern command from the shore rang into the night. They gave it
+no heed. Animal rage possessed them; they were no longer men but beasts,
+fighting with hand and foot and knee, clawing, tearing, even biting as
+the chance of conflict brought Luigi's lips within reach of his
+assailant's cheek. They were lost to all human warning or control.
+
+It was no human interference which separated them.
+
+Fate played her hand--played it irresistibly, crushingly, played it with
+a vindictive completeness such as even she has never used since her grip
+fell upon her plaything--that toy of hers among a million million toys,
+and which we call our world.
+
+A roar, terrific, growing, menacing, filling the echoes, brimming the
+heavy air, rolling out across the still waters of the bay, thundered
+into the silence of the shore. The dim lamps upon the Marina shook;
+crash upon crash echoed from buildings which could not be seen, but
+which terror could picture in all the crude pigments of imagination and
+despair! Beside the boat a huge crack rent the jetty in twain. Stones,
+dashed from the crumbling buildings in the darkness, flung huge gouts of
+spray over the two who wrenched themselves apart in her stern, over
+their prisoners, over the child, who cried aloud in all the agony of
+childish fear.
+
+And then human voices joined the chorus--voices which expressed every
+intonation of panic, of the horror which is built upon amazement, of the
+unleashed emotions of men awaking to meet blindly the common hazards of
+life and confronting chaos, illimitable ruin, a sudden unbarring of the
+gates of Hell.
+
+The struggle in the boat ceased. Wild curses became, on Luigi's lips, a
+string of piteous appeals to the very saints whose names he had used a
+moment before to point his blasphemies. Miller and Landon grasped the
+oars.
+
+But even the terrors of earthquake do not wreck the discipline of
+Italy's Carbineers. The sergeant's warning was repeated thunderously.
+
+Miller screamed an assent, a surrender. Landon answered with an oath.
+The one endeavored to propel the boat shorewards, the other towards the
+sea. It spun between their efforts; they yelled and gesticulated madly.
+
+And again the sergeant's voice was heard, with a hundred other voices,
+appealing to a God whose mercy was surely turned away.
+
+For a moaning sound _tingled_ along the strand, and then silently, but
+with the speed of a cataract, the sea sank back from the shore.
+
+It plucked half a hundred boats from their anchorages; it gripped them
+down into its trough. For full thirty seconds they fled upon this
+monstrous tide of a tideless sea, hull crashing against hull, mast
+beating against mast, a wrecked wilderness of spars and rigging,
+tangled, coiled, the froth, the scum, as it were, upon that mighty
+crest. And behind them went the _Santa Margarita's_ dingy, with bound
+and free in equal helplessness.
+
+Then, as if the sluice of some Cyclopean lock had been shut, the mighty
+mill-race halted and a mountain grew upon the face of the deep. Huge,
+black, awesome, it swung itself up, swelled higher and higher, hung
+through an aeon-long moment of horror, and then rolled back whence it had
+come. And the menace of its coming left no tiniest coign of foothold for
+hope in its path. Irresistible and relentless it moved along to destroy
+every barrier of nature, every man-built obstacle with its might. Its
+foam-plumed crest roared over the quayside and the Marina five fathoms
+deep.
+
+Like a chip upon the surface of a torrent which suddenly hastens to the
+brink of the cascade, the boat and its burden of lives was snatched
+along. The three who stood and gripped its gunwale saw the broad expanse
+of the Marina before them, saw it seem to sink as they themselves rose
+upon the flood, saw how they raced across it twenty feet above the level
+of its flags. And they saw more--saw it with eyes which seemed to sear
+their brains with anticipation, with despair.
+
+This!
+
+A long, irregular, deep-fronted row of dwellings, square to the sea,
+square to the reeling ridge of ocean which was sweeping upon them as the
+gust sweeps down upon the far-flung autumn leaves.
+
+They called aloud in chorus; they challenged Fate with their despair.
+And Fate replied.
+
+The waters reached the walls; the huge sheet of spray shot high into the
+night. But the dingy passed on uncrushed.
+
+An alley opened before them--an alley through which they shot on the
+roaring tide into the square beyond, sank down as the dwindling waters
+sank and with their last effort of destruction reached, and were borne
+into an arched opening girt about with trees. And then that, in its
+turn, became a ruin of plaster and planks and stone. The wave completed
+what the earthquake had all too thoroughly begun. The roof and walls
+crashed down into a grim monument upon a living grave.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+DAWN COMES
+
+
+Out of the darkness of insensibility consciousness came slowly into
+being in Aylmer's brain, but memory lagged to join it. He was
+bound--that he realized, and his teeth were immovable upon a gag. The
+darkness was absolute and so, for the first few minutes through which
+his senses woke, was the silence. He could feel rough slabs of wood
+which cased his body in. He shifted uneasily and beat his temple upon a
+plank. The sweat of terror broke out upon his brow. He was buried alive!
+God help him! The worst that could happen to a living soul was his
+sentence from the lips of Fate!
+
+Something whimpered in the darkness; something stirred beside his feet.
+
+In a flash came remembrance. The awful moment of disaster through which
+he had been carried, blind, speechless, and bound, became a picture in
+his brain--a picture the more vivid in that actuality had been hidden
+from him and imagination had supplied details beyond the compass of the
+real. He stirred afresh, he writhed, his bound wrists beat out upon the
+air.
+
+The whimpers ceased and words followed--words in a child's voice shaken
+by fear. A trembling hand found Aylmer's sleeve, crept up it to his
+cheek, and halted there in miserable hesitation.
+
+"It's me--it's me!" whispered the voice. "Can't you speak? Oh, can't you
+speak to me?"
+
+And then the wandering fingers found the linen band which bound the gag
+into place and was fastened behind Aylmer's head.
+
+"Is that why?" said the child in eager discovery. "Is _that_ why?"
+
+The band cut into Aylmer's cheek as the knot was twitched with all the
+awkwardness of haste, but a moment later the pressure ceased. He spat
+the gag from between his teeth.
+
+"Little John!" he cried. "Little John! Are you hurt? are you able to
+stand?"
+
+The boy clutched him with a sort of desperation of relief.
+
+"Oh, you _can_ speak--you _can_ speak!" he shouted joyously. "My head
+aches and my shoulder doesn't move right, but I can stand. I can reach
+nothing above my head--or right--or left."
+
+There was a creaking of timber as he moved, stretching his hands, as was
+evident, into the black emptiness about the boat. Aylmer's bound wrists
+were lifted to reach him.
+
+"Pick at them--as you did before, little John," he said. "Loose me, so
+that we can search the darkness together."
+
+The child's breath came in zealous pants as he tugged and pulled, but
+the knots were tightly lashed and sodden with the sea. And his haste was
+a handicap; he plucked and twisted ineffectually. And finally he
+overbalanced himself and slipped.
+
+He gave a cry of pain.
+
+"I'm hurted--I'm bleeding!" he sobbed. "I fell against something that
+cut!"
+
+Aylmer's heart stood still. If the fall had injured the child severely,
+if it had disabled him, if he were to lose consciousness--was this
+horror of helplessness to be added to those which already had them in
+their grip? He stretched out his arms towards the sound of the sobbing,
+and this, as he did so, suddenly ceased.
+
+Panic gripped him, only to be fought down. Slowly, and with painful
+effort, he twisted himself round in the darkness till his bound wrists
+found as their goal the child's cap which still covered his untidy mane
+of curls. And these were wet and sticky.
+
+The reason was not far to seek. The baling slipper lay below little
+John's temple--the baling slipper mended with a rough strip of tin. And
+this had cut through cap and curls, down to the bone. It had finished
+what terror had begun. The boy had fainted.
+
+Aylmer's first impulse was to use the whole of his tethered strength in
+bringing consciousness back to the child--to what was, he considered,
+his only chance of freedom. A moment later chance pointed a quicker
+road. His knuckles met and were scarred by the frayed edge of the tin.
+He gave an exclamation of impatience at his own dulness. What would cut
+him would cut his bonds. Crouching down he managed to grip the slipper
+between his knees and steady it there. And then he rasped his lashings
+upon its edge.
+
+A minute sufficed, or even less. The cord frayed, gave strand by strand,
+and broke apart with a twang. He gasped with relief and fell to work
+upon his ankles. As these bonds loosened and fell away in their turn, he
+stood up, rising slowly and stretching his hands above his head. He
+touched nothing.
+
+He sighed not only with relief, this time, but with a faint tinge of
+hope. And then he bent, felt his way past the still motionless child,
+and touched, by chance's guidance, Claire Van Arlen's hair. And he gave
+another exclamation of self-encouragement. For her cheek was warm.
+
+He plucked the gag from her lips; his hands were already at her wrists
+as she uttered his name. He thrilled to the anxiety in her voice.
+
+"You?" she asked anxiously. "You? You were uninjured. I heard you speak
+and--and, it seemed, to me that you--_flagged_--that you--were not you!"
+
+"Yes," he answered quietly. "I had not found you then. I did not know--I
+do not know it yet--how far you yourself were unhurt."
+
+His fingers were unlashing her feet now. He heard her stir into a
+sitting posture and, as her feet were freed, felt her rise to her knees.
+Instinct bade him thrust out a hand as she did so, and she rocked up
+against it. Her energy had been more than her strength; she leaned
+against him panting.
+
+For a full minute he held her, feeling her pulses throb against his,
+fanned by her breath that panted past his cheek, one hand warm within
+his own, one upon his shoulder. And through the darkness he sent out his
+appeal to Fate. If the grim goddess had no farther favors in her store
+for him, let her hand close upon him there. Might there be no more weary
+struggles; might the end find him and the girl whose hand clung to his
+in this intimate protection at once. Let death come in that moment, and
+he would ask no more.
+
+Fate gave no answer and the moment passed.
+
+She gave a little sob and, still holding him, staggered to her feet.
+
+"It is the stiffness, and the long hours bound. And the
+anxiety--for--for you!" she murmured. "I am unhurt, indeed I am unhurt.
+I have scarcely so much as a bruise upon me. And my chatelaine? That is
+still at my waist. I have--have matches, if the sea water has spared
+them!"
+
+Light! Could they pierce this wall of darkness; could they actually hope
+to see how and where they were caged? He scarcely dared to breathe as he
+heard her silver chain of trinkets tinkle, and heard the rasp of the
+match-head on the box. The red spark sputtered against the blackness and
+then flared into yellow being as the wax took flame. They looked about
+them with more than curiosity. With awe.
+
+High above their head was an arch of masonry, massively mortised,
+curving from a wall to a row of squat, solid pillars; and these last
+flanked a pile of heaped rubble and stone. They were in a passage some
+twenty feet long, closed at each end as the unwalled side was closed by
+the wreck of the house above. It was a cloister. And the open courtyard
+which it had rimmed was now a stupendous rubbish heap, massed high above
+their heads with ruin.
+
+They looked down. They still stood in the boat, and at Aylmer's feet the
+child was huddled in unconsciousness, the blood still welling slowly
+from the cut on his brow. Beyond them something indefinite and
+unrecognizable lay in a dark heap upon the flags.
+
+Aylmer stepped forward and bent over it.
+
+It was the body of a man, clothed in the dark, red-striped uniform of
+the Carbineers. His lips were grim and set. His right hand still
+clutched the breach of a rifle. And at his belt was a lantern--the glass
+broken, but the tin intact. Aylmer's hands trembled as they fell upon
+this prize.
+
+He wheeled back to his companion and touched the flame against the wick.
+There was a moment's suspense, and then they sighed in chorus. For the
+oil was unspilt. For a time, at least, darkness was not to be among the
+terrors which menaced them.
+
+Claire knelt and pulled the child upon her knee. She stanched the blood;
+she dropped her handkerchief into the little pool of sea water which was
+fast draining through the wrenched seams of the boat, and gently laved
+the unconscious face. Little John stirred drowsily, opened his eyes
+reluctantly, and looked up with wonder into her face.
+
+He put his hand up weakly to his temple.
+
+"It's--it's queer--and--and hurty," he whispered. "Muhammed? He would
+make it well."
+
+She pulled him to her tenderly.
+
+"Does it hurt badly?" she asked. "Muhammed hasn't come to us--yet."
+
+He looked wonderingly around him.
+
+"The house--opened--and let us right in," he mused. "We came up on the
+sea--right up--as fast as a train. And Dad? Dad was with us then."
+
+She looked up questioningly at Aylmer. And he had gathered up the dead
+Carbineer's cloak and was arranging it against the stern. He made a
+motion towards it.
+
+"Sleep is all the medicine we can give him," he advised. "Let him rest.
+Meanwhile we must use the light while we have it."
+
+She nodded quickly and laid the child gently down. He smiled at her
+drowsily again, whispered a half-distinguishable appeal to be told when
+the Moor "came back," and then nature's healing hand closed over his
+eyes. He slept--the deep, dead sleep of exhaustion.
+
+Aylmer raised the lamp. Together they paced the length of their prison.
+
+The gray flags were bare except where the Carbineer's body lay. With a
+little gesture of compassion, Aylmer straightened the stiffening limbs,
+and covered the stern, unfaltering face with the dead man's
+handkerchief. And then they passed on, to confront the hill of rubble
+which closed the cloister's end. And here they halted, as they looked
+down.
+
+Claire shuddered.
+
+A gray sleeve emerged from the stones and an open hand seemed to appeal
+for the help which came all too late. Aylmer dragged fiercely at the
+ruined wall. A block or two became unseated. These shouldered out others
+to rumble at their feet.
+
+A gray-clad body became exposed. They looked at it, instinct preparing
+them to recognize what they saw. Battered and disfigured though it was,
+they knew it for Miller's face.
+
+For a moment they kept silence, looking at it fixedly. The eyes were
+open, but death had wiped out from them the imperturbability which they
+had held through life. Fear had gripped the gray man at the last. Horror
+had been with him--even panic.
+
+Aylmer leaned down and covered the fear-haunted eyes.
+
+"He has gone, and taken his mystery with him," he said. "What his life
+was we shall never ascertain. What led him to betray us? That is beyond
+our learning. It may have been no more than fear and the desire to save
+himself. I think there was something behind it all that has escaped us,
+but"--he shrugged his shoulders as he looked about him--"what does it
+matter now?"
+
+He held the lantern at arm's length as he spoke, and looked searchingly
+round. The gray stone ringed them in relentlessly. Was there any
+expedient in which they could find a challenge to the arbitrary decree
+of Fate? He saw none.
+
+The girl at his side watched him. And then her eyes met his. And as he
+spoke his voice was strangely gentle.
+
+"God interfered between Landon and his evil purpose, as you said He
+would. Perhaps, who knows, He may have other mercies reserved for us.
+But in any case we must teach each other to be strong."
+
+She nodded gravely.
+
+"We are in His hands," she said, "and nothing can be as terrible as what
+was threatened us by that vile man. The boy is safe. I have the help of
+your presence. We must kill imagination with work."
+
+He looked about him again, doubtfully.
+
+"Work?" he questioned. "Have we the chance to work?"
+
+"Isn't it obvious," she said. "That is a courtyard. Above the ruins
+which brim it is the sky. If we use our strength and time to pluck a way
+through that to life again, we shall, at least, not think."
+
+He paced forward a yard or two and examined the heaped wreckage of
+plaster, wooden beams, and stones. He hesitated.
+
+"If we disturb it, there is just a chance of making our situation
+worse," he hazarded.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"No," she said significantly. "Not worse. God might answer us that way,
+and save us suspense. And we shall, at any rate, have defied Fate to the
+end."
+
+"Yes," he said. "In that I am with you; we will do our best--to the
+last. And if God's purpose falls upon us quickly, Claire, I thank Him
+here and now that He has permitted me to share this bitter cup with you,
+instead of draining that more bitter one which threatened an hour ago.
+At least I am not leaving you in Landon's hands, alone."
+
+"And I am not helpless while they work their vile wills upon you," she
+answered. "Fate has been cruel enough, but she has spared us that. The
+end? That is still her mystery. Let us forget it."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"There is much I can remember which will spare me that. What you have
+been and done for me these last wild days--my memory will occupy itself
+with that and hope--while I work to make hope true."
+
+And then, still smiling as if he had plumbed the eyes of Hope and found
+in them an answering smile, he laid the lantern on the flags and put his
+hands upon the barrier of ruin which faced him.
+
+He toiled vigorously but with caution. As he rolled the larger blocks
+from their resting-place, he was quick to notice and to support the
+beams or flagstones which they had buttressed with their weight. And he
+used the first plank which tumbled out of the chaos as a lever upon its
+fellows. At his feet Claire worked vigorously, sweeping out the plaster
+which filled the openings as he made them, rolling aside the unseated
+stones to give him room, lending her lesser strength to aid his, when
+some task was trying his powers to the utmost.
+
+For a couple of hours they toiled silently, and a gap had been hewn into
+the debris--a gap which seemed to be ceaselessly filled as the
+accumulations rolled into it from above, but an opening, nevertheless,
+which spoke of progress, which showed a reward for effort, which even
+pictured, faintly and indistinctly, a vision of hope. If their strength
+lasted? Was there not a chance, a tiny, elusive, but possible chance?
+
+It was the remembrance that uninterrupted effort would fatigue them to a
+point where their strength would be taxed beyond recovery which made
+Aylmer at last call a halt. They went and sat beside the sleeping child.
+To economize the light, they extinguished the lamp.
+
+And then--they rubbed their eyes.
+
+A tiny beam of light, dim, faint, gray but distinguishable, was filtered
+down into their prison at the point where one of the cloister pillars
+reached an arch. It fell upon the flags in a little circle.
+
+Aylmer reached it in two strides. He gave an exclamation.
+
+"It is a pipe from the spouting of the roof," he cried. "I see the sky.
+I see the sky!"
+
+She was at his side in an instant. In her turn she looked up into the
+hollow of the tube, to see light. She gave a little gasp.
+
+"It's wonderful--wonderful!" she breathed. "Only that little way up--ten
+feet, twelve, perhaps, and freedom. And we are here!"
+
+"It means two things of infinite importance!" he rejoined. "Air and, in
+all probability, water. If the gutter which discharges into this is
+still intact, we shall receive the rain when it comes. And after
+earthquake it comes, invariably."
+
+She was not paying him attention. Her eye was still fixed below the tiny
+opening; she continued to look up as if the tiny disc of brightness
+fascinated her, as if she would drink draughts of the outer air thus
+delivered to them as if from an immense cistern.
+
+And then the emotion of sudden discovery illuminated her face.
+
+"We can signal!" she cried. "We can attract attention! We have only to
+thrust a rod up through that, and it will tell our tale. Surely there
+are rescuers at work by now; a whole city cannot be left to its fate!"
+
+His eyes glistened.
+
+"God sent that thought to you--God himself!" he cried. "We must have a
+rod; we must make one!" He turned and re-lit the lantern. He examined
+the splintered woodwork of the boat with a calculating eye.
+
+Wood was at their service in plenty, but the tools to deal with it were
+wanting. Neither of them possessed a knife. He searched the pockets of
+the dead, but had no success. For a moment they stood regarding each
+other in incredulous despair. Surely Fate, after bracing them with this
+hope, was not going to torture them by withdrawal? And then Aylmer's eye
+fell upon the baling slipper.
+
+He lifted it with a gesture of relief; he tore the strip of tin from off
+it and held it up.
+
+"That is our blade!" he cried. "We have only to pare down splinters till
+they will pass through the pipe, and the thing is done."
+
+He picked up a piece of planking as he spoke, worked the metal into the
+grain till a split began to gape, and then, wrapping a piece of
+tarpaulin round each end of his impromptu blade, worked it to and fro
+and downwards. A thin sliver of wood was the result--one about eighteen
+inches long.
+
+He repeated the operation, slowly and carefully. As each lath was split
+and pared, he passed it to his companion and she spliced the ends with
+strips of gray cloth. And these? Aylmer took them from the dead body at
+the end of the cloister. Miller, in death, was helping to repair some of
+the injuries for which his life was responsible.
+
+They worked methodically, without haste, but with every care. Two hours
+later they had a twelve-foot staff laid out at their feet. To the top
+they attached a little flag, also of gray. They divided it into halves,
+thrust the upper half into the pipe, attached the lower one to it, and
+then pushed the whole upwards to the full extent of Aylmer's reach.
+Claire peered anxiously into the hole. She gave a great cry of relief;
+her eyes filled with sudden tears.
+
+"The flag is outside!" she cried. "There is no doubt of that; it is a
+certainty. While it was wrapped round the head of the staff inside the
+tube, it hid all light from me. And now light has come again--dim, but
+there still. It slips down between the staff and the sides. The flag is
+out in the air--the air!"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"All that remains, then, is to keep it moving--to show that human beings
+are holding its other end. We must work ceaselessly."
+
+He looked round at her as he spoke. Her eyes were bent on him earnestly,
+meditatively. And there was something in her gaze for which he had no
+clue.
+
+She spoke, and so supplied it herself.
+
+"I think we shall be rescued now," she said quietly. "I feel a certainty
+about it, an instinct. Yes, I think we have defeated Fate. We shall come
+back into life again, you and I."
+
+He understood. Through the wild days in the boat and on the island, Fate
+had given no chance for either of them to probe the future. Hope had
+had so tiny a place in their thoughts--hopelessness had so immeasurably
+absorbed them all. And now? Was she allowing herself to dwell on life as
+it would affect them untouched by Fate, and free? Was she mentally
+rearranging her attitude to him?
+
+Fate would supply her own answer. He turned and doggedly began to work
+the flagstaff up and down.
+
+A tension of silence was over them as they waited. The hours went by.
+With a little gesture she came, took the pole from his hand, and bade
+him rest. He surrendered it quietly, spent ten minutes in massaging his
+stiffened muscles, and then took it again. It was queer, this sudden
+reticence which had arisen between them. It was as if while Fate delayed
+to speak, all other words were futile. And her answer might come at any
+moment or--God help them--not at all.
+
+The hours lengthened. The thin rays which still filtered through the
+half-closed pipe grew dim and at last died altogether. Night had come.
+
+Aylmer turned with a little shrug, placed a plank beneath the butt of
+the staff to keep it in position, and came back to the boat.
+
+"There is no need to fatigue ourselves through the darkness," he said.
+"Till daylight shows our flag again, we had better rest, to be strong
+for to-morrow. Shall we sleep?"
+
+She looked at him curiously, and then answered with a little nod.
+
+"Sleep," she agreed. "You are tired, tired. And wake strong; your
+strength--God knows--has been tried enough."
+
+There was something restrained in her voice; something which again
+escaped his comprehension, but his fatigue was overmastering. He
+stretched himself upon a couple of flags. Sleep overcame him instantly.
+
+Was it a moment later that he awoke in answer to her cry? So he
+believed, but as a matter of fact midnight was long past. She had lit a
+match; she was holding it to the wick of the lantern.
+
+Her eyes were wide and bright with excitement. She pointed towards the
+pipe.
+
+"I could not rest!" she cried. "No, I could not sleep and know that
+rescue might be passing by. I have worked at the staff ceaselessly and
+now! Now it is gone!"
+
+He sprang towards her.
+
+"Gone!" he repeated. "Gone!"
+
+"They are there--above us--men--men who know we are here. They pulled it
+up, out of my hands!" She made a gesture which pled for silence.
+"Listen!" she cried. "Listen!"
+
+A tinkling sound came from the pipe and then a tiny bottle sank into
+view, dangling from a string. He seized it. It was warm.
+
+"Soup!" he cried. "Food! That is their first thought for us! And I had
+forgotten that I was starving. I had forgotten it absolutely!"
+
+He held it to her lips. She put out her hand in protest, but his gesture
+was inexorable. She gave a queer little laugh, shrugged her shoulders,
+and drank. He took the half she left him and drank in his turn. He tied
+the bottle again to the string and shook it. It disappeared and was
+lowered again, this time with wine. And half a dozen little rolls
+dropped at their feet. They ate, they waked the child and fed him, they
+sat, and from above the sound of pick and mattock in the hands of men
+who toiled furiously thundered down to them. They speculated how and
+whence the first sight of rescue would appear. They laughed in high,
+excited tones. Expectancy had them in its grip to the exclusion of all
+other emotions.
+
+And then, with a sudden roar and crash, an avalanche of rubble poured
+into the hole which they had dug into the mass of debris. And with it
+came a man in sailor uniform who mixed anathema and congratulation in
+excited but fluent French. He wept, he fell upon Aylmer's neck and
+embraced him, he kissed the child and Claire's hand. Slowly they toiled
+at his heels, helped by a dangling rope, out into the red glare of a
+dozen torches which were held by seamen of the French Marine.
+
+And one of the two officers who directed them called upon the name of
+God and all His saints to emphasize his amazement.
+
+It was Rattier who held and shook their hands a hundred times. Rattier,
+incoherent, swearing, every vestige of his taciturnity ravished from him
+by emotion, plying them with a thousand questions, raining tears upon
+little John Aylmer's wondering face.
+
+They reached the market square. They looked upon the ruin which covered
+the devastated earth in the wan light of the slowly coming dawn.
+
+Five miles away, swinging at her mooring opposite the ruined port of
+Messina was a white-hulled boat--a boat which they looked at with
+wistfully incredulous eyes. They whispered her name.
+
+"_The Morning Star?_" they wondered. "_The Morning Star?_"
+
+"What else?" cried the commandant, exultantly. "That Spanish torpedo
+boat--did you think nothing was to be heard from her? You disappeared.
+Two days later comes the news from Malaga of a felucca, going east with
+prisoners on board. Would that not induce your father, Mademoiselle, to
+put two and two together? The Melilla port authorities supplied the name
+of that felucca and her destination--Sicily. He arrived two days back. I
+have seen him, we spoke together, and then God knows all our energies
+and thoughts have been with these poor wretches ashore. Down in Messina
+your own countrymen and the Russians are doing marvels. The _Diomede_
+was the only French ship, alas, in harbor, but we have others coming
+from Tunis, from Algiers, from Marseilles. We need every worker we can
+get. What you have suffered thousands are suffering still."
+
+Aylmer gave a quick, decided little nod. He looked at Claire.
+
+"You will let one of these sailors see you on board?" he said. "Paul
+will spare one to escort you."
+
+She looked at him, startled, a little bewildered, even.
+
+"And you?" she asked. "And you?"
+
+He made a gesture towards the chaos which covered shore and hill.
+
+"Can I leave the work which calls me, knowing what I know?" he asked.
+"Paul has put my duty into words. What I have suffered, others are
+suffering yet. Would you think well of me, if I left it?"
+
+She looked at him with a smile that told of appreciation, approval, of
+something (or was hope a lying glass?) more than these.
+
+"No!" she said quietly. "No!" She hesitated a moment.
+
+"And when I have found my father, eased his mind, delivered to him his
+grandchild whom he owes to you, rested, made myself strong to work, will
+you come for me to do my part? Will you come--then?"
+
+As the dawn rose over Messina's city of the dead, in John Aylmer's heart
+rose the dawn of hope fulfilled. Her eyes? What message did they not
+give? He read it as plainly as he knew he would read it at their next
+meeting--from her lips.
+
+He lifted her hand. His moustache swept it.
+
+"Till then, Claire," he whispered. "Till then, Beloved."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+SHADOWS GO
+
+
+Dawn flushed into full daylight as the sun rose upon the ruined city.
+Morning dragged its length to midday and midday merged in afternoon. And
+the workers toiled on doggedly, burrowing, hewing, climbing, flinging
+their energies, risking their lives, against the inanimate barriers of
+destruction. Italian and Frenchman, Englishman and Russian vied with
+each other in deeds of humanity against the common foe. Nor was that foe
+content with the victory already won. Further shocks furrowed the
+stricken shores: ruin became more complete, danger more menacing, but
+the toilers worked on.
+
+Aylmer's rescuers had gone aboard their ship and had been replaced by a
+new relay. He himself remained. The pressing needs of those who lay, as
+he had lain, in living tombs around him were first in his mind. But
+another thought was ceaseless. Certainty--that was what he asked.
+Certainty of Landon's fate. He scarcely allowed himself to realize how
+he hoped--_yearned_--to know definitely that Landon was dead. He simply
+contemplated it as a matter of completeness, as news that would bring
+infinite relief to those on board _The Morning Star_. If he were alive?
+He set his lips grimly. Though law was suspended, order out of gear,
+Landon should meet his deserts. If not by instruments of Italian
+justice, then by Aylmer's own hands--by the law of retribution, not the
+law of revenge.
+
+He dropped the mattock which he had been wielding. He stood up and
+straightened himself, turning his eyes from the wearying expanse of
+wreckage towards the sea.
+
+A boat was running up beside the ruined jetty. Before the mooring ropes
+were cast ashore a tall figure leaped from it--a figure clad in a
+_soutane_.
+
+Aylmer made an exclamation, hesitated, and then clambered down the walls
+and ran across the uneven flags, holding out his hand.
+
+Padre Sigismondi flung up his arms. His gesture was one of incredulous
+relief.
+
+"But the Signora?" he cried, stricken with sudden apprehension. He
+panted, his eyes were vivid with anxiety. "The Signora?"
+
+As Aylmer answered with the one vital word, the priest cried aloud
+again. He lifted his face towards the sky and made the sign of the
+cross.
+
+"Safe!" he repeated. "Safe! If there was a single hope left to me amid
+the horrors which have overwhelmed us, it was that. I told myself that
+God, who allowed me to fail in my duty to you through my arrogant
+self-confidence, might be saving you in the midst of--and by--this
+destruction. When I came to myself and found you gone, I writhed. My
+friend, I cast myself upon the ground in the agonies of my
+self-reproach. Not to have plumbed the wicked devices of these men--I,
+who have worked among them a score of years!"
+
+Aylmer gripped his hand.
+
+"You, yourself?" he inquired. "You come here--how?"
+
+"One of the many boats which were speeding to Messina--some, alas, with
+no charitable intent, I fear--saw my signals and took me off. And now?
+One scarcely knows where to begin. How can one confront such a disaster
+with one's puny efforts? God send me His strength! My own is as water!"
+
+A shout echoed to them suddenly from the group of sailors. One stood up
+and waved to them with his neckcloth.
+
+Aylmer made an answering gesture. He took the priest's arm.
+
+"Begin here, father," he said quietly. "Some of those we have found are
+alive, but death's claim, I fear, is relaxed for no more than an hour or
+two. They need your offices. It may be for such an one that they are
+signalling to us now."
+
+They hurried across the square. They climbed the pyramid of ruin.
+
+The sailors were looking down at something which lay at their
+feet--something brown, and white, and vivid red.
+
+The quartermaster pointed to a crevice in the masonry.
+
+"There is a hollow," he explained. "We pulled him out by the arms,
+which--God forgive us--are broken. There are in there, perhaps, others.
+His eyes imply it. Words are beyond him."
+
+The priest gave a startled exclamation. Aylmer echoed it. Disfigured,
+battered, crushed as it was, they recognized the figure in the
+blood-stained _djelab_ of brown.
+
+A growing dimness was clouding Muhammed's eyes. The quick pant of his
+breathing weakened as they watched. But a flash of feeling illuminated
+the pallid features as the Moor's glance reached and dwelled upon
+Aylmer's face.
+
+His lips moved.
+
+"The child?" he asked in a faint whisper. "The Sidi Jan?"
+
+Padre Sigismondi darted an inquiring look at his companion and then
+knelt beside the dying man.
+
+"The child is well," he answered gravely. "Yourself? Is there no message
+to give, no delivery of your soul you wish to make? Time is short for
+you. Use it, and me, as you wish."
+
+The brown eyes searched the priest's features with a queer disdain, as
+it seemed--or was it, perchance, compassion. The stiffening lips became
+more grimly resolute.
+
+"I proclaim!" said the Moor. "I proclaim that there is One God--One
+God--," and passed, unfaltering, to meet Him.
+
+For a moment there was silence. Aylmer broke it.
+
+"Perhaps we owe him more than we think," he said slowly. "The boy? That
+was always his first care. Perhaps he stood between the child and harm.
+I believe that he would have done so in the face of the child's father
+himself!"
+
+Sigismondi drew a fold of the _djelab_ over the bruised face.
+
+"The God to whom he appealed is his judge," he said. "Let us leave it in
+His hands. The living, now, my friend. It is not here that we can
+concern ourselves with the dead."
+
+They turned to the sailors. Half a dozen blocks had been rolled from the
+opening, which gaped wide over an empty darkness. The quartermaster
+slung himself carefully down into it and slowly disappeared.
+
+A moment later they heard his voice.
+
+"A rope," he demanded. "Here is one who is, at least, warm."
+
+They passed down a rope carefully. Aylmer's heart became suddenly
+audible to himself. What would appear; what had Fate still in store for
+him?
+
+Again the quartermaster's voice echoed from the darkness with
+directions. The sailors bent their backs and hauled.
+
+A face appeared in the opening, travelling upwards.
+
+Aylmer felt no surprise. This was the expected, the inevitable. Landon
+was dragged out into the day--Landon--alive.
+
+They laid him silently at his cousin's feet.
+
+And as Aylmer looked down he felt a thrill of what must have been nearly
+akin to sympathy. God help the mutilated wretch!
+
+His arms hung beside him limp and helpless, the fractured bones
+distorted in hideous angles. There were marks as of burns upon his face.
+But the supreme horror was in the sockets which held nothing
+recognizable as human eyes. Coals might have lain within them--coals
+pressed down to find their quenching there.
+
+He moaned ceaselessly, swinging himself from side to side. And then
+words came slowly, piteously, one by one.
+
+"Oil!" he gasped. "For God's sake, a little oil--upon my eyes!"
+
+Sigismondi shuddered. Then he bent and placed his hand compassionately
+on the scarred temple.
+
+"As soon as it can be found, my brother," he said. "Try to keep your
+courage while we do our utmost. We have to carry you--where you can be
+treated."
+
+The tortured wretch moaned again and made an instinctive effort to raise
+a hand to his face. He shrieked as the shattered bones failed him,
+shrieked and cursed in hideous blasphemies. His brain began to wander
+upon the border-line of delirium.
+
+"Hours--days--weeks," he wailed. "Broken--broken! Immovable and always
+in agony--burning--my eyes--my eyes! And the rain--running over them
+and bringing more agony--and more--and more. And unable to move a
+finger. My feet hanging in emptiness--my hands crushed in upon
+me--crushed--crushed--crushed!"
+
+The quartermaster made a gesture of infinite compassion.
+
+"The room had been newly plastered, do you see?" he whispered. "He was
+caught bodily--in the closing of the walls--as a nutcracker closes. And
+he was held and crushed--like the nut. The lime was deep upon his
+face--and when the rain came, washing it in--eating him--" He turned
+away with another pregnant motion of his hands, as if he put from him
+the picture which imagination conjured up.
+
+Aylmer leaned down and spoke.
+
+"We are going to take you from here," he said. "We are going to lift
+you. Be prepared."
+
+Landon's groans ceased. His body became suddenly rigid with attention.
+
+"Jack?" he whispered incredulously. "Jack?"
+
+"It is I," said Aylmer gravely. "I--am unhurt."
+
+Landon's face grew yet more distorted.
+
+"Claire?" he muttered eagerly. "Claire--is gone?"
+
+A light gleamed tempestuously in Aylmer's eyes and then as quickly died.
+His voice was even and restrained.
+
+"She is safe, and well," he said. "She is on her father's yacht."
+
+An inarticulate howl of rage burst from Landon's lips. He rocked himself
+to and fro; he made as if he would beat his broken hands upon the
+stones.
+
+"God! If they'd suffered alongside me, if they'd been there, if they had
+given me groan for groan, I could have stood it--enjoyed it--damn them,
+I could have laughed with the lime in my eyes, if they'd been there--if
+they'd been there!"
+
+He jerked himself to a sitting posture; he writhed backwards and
+forwards. His spite was a sort of ecstasy, possessing him, freeing him,
+as it seemed, from even the sense of pain.
+
+Aylmer made a significant motion. He bent and slipped his arms beneath
+Landon's shoulders. The quartermaster lifted his knees.
+
+Landon struggled in their arms.
+
+"Let me be!" he cried. "Let me stand. Damn you, let me stand upon my own
+feet!"
+
+They hesitated. Then with a shrug the quartermaster laid down his
+burden.
+
+"This is no place for a blind man to pick his way," he remonstrated. "To
+get down, Monsieur, you have to poise yourself along the wall thirty
+feet above the square."
+
+Landon stood panting and leaning against his cousin. The spasms of agony
+were convulsing his face.
+
+"I will not be carried," he panted. "I'll walk upon my feet--like a
+man."
+
+They looked at each other, hesitating.
+
+"But your arms?" protested Aylmer. "Your arms?"
+
+The breath hissed between Landon's teeth.
+
+"My arms!" he repeated. "God! If I'd my arms! You--you must lead
+me--carefully--carefully. Put your hand upon my shoulder; keep
+close--close."
+
+For a dozen yards he tottered along, and the sweat broke out astream
+upon his scars. And then he halted, and stumbled.
+
+The quartermaster instinctively put a hand upon one of the broken
+wrists. Landon shrieked, and cursed him hideously.
+
+"Monsieur might have fallen," apologized the man. "My excuses, Monsieur,
+but it was so quick--so near--the danger. The drop is sheer, do you see,
+sheer down to the square."
+
+Landon gasped. "Which side?" he asked thickly. "Which side?"
+
+"The right," said Aylmer. "Lean away from me, inwards, to the left!"
+
+Landon drew a deep breath.
+
+The next instant he had flung himself against Aylmer's guiding hand,
+outwards, to the right!
+
+For the second time the quartermaster cried aloud and stretched out a
+hand. But it was not Landon's sleeve which it reached, but
+Aylmer's--reached and gripped it while the two bodies reeled upon the
+crumbling edge and sent the flying blocks down to break into powder upon
+the solid flags below.
+
+And then, where two had struggled, one alone remained and clung. Landon
+had gone. Like the blocks he lay thirty feet below--broken.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+FATE SMILES AT LAST
+
+
+A pall of mist and driving rain closed upon the city as evening fell, as
+if Nature flung a veil between herself and the handiwork of her
+passions. Through it the launch of the _Diomede_ threaded the network of
+the shipping.
+
+Warmly red against the ghost-like paintwork, the ports of _The Morning
+Star_ beamed up out of the smother. Aylmer held up his hand. Silently,
+with stopped engines, the boat slid up to the accommodation ladder, and
+as silently Aylmer swung himself aboard.
+
+With a gesture of farewell to the boat's crew and one of greeting to the
+sailor at the gangway head, he passed into the companion and went below.
+In the doorway of the saloon he halted.
+
+Two figures sat at the table, a picture book open before them. Claire's
+arm was about her little nephew's shoulder. His face was turned up to
+hers, but his finger still pointed to the page which they had been
+studying.
+
+"And was he brave, enormously brave?" he was asking. "As brave as--as
+Muhammed?"
+
+"Braver than Muhammed," she said quietly. "Because he was--good."
+
+He debated a moment.
+
+"As brave as the pig man, then?" he suggested. "He's been good, always?"
+
+Aylmer stepped forward.
+
+"Not always," he said smiling. "Not even often. But just as much as he
+knew how to be."
+
+The glances which met his were startled but full of welcome. With a
+cackle of delight little John ran from his seat.
+
+"It's him, himself--the pig man!" he cried.
+
+Aylmer smiled and held out his hand.
+
+Then he turned.
+
+In Claire's eyes the surprise had vanished. They were full of inquiry,
+of an agony of question. Her lips were pale and faltered over the words
+which would not come.
+
+He nodded, gravely, significantly.
+
+She gave a little gasp. The color rushed to her cheeks, flooded to her
+brow. As if some strong chord of tension had broken in her breast, she
+leaned against the table, quivering.
+
+"Yes," said Aylmer, quietly. "That shadow is lifted from our lives. He
+is gone--God's hand fell upon him--as you told him it would. The future
+of this life," he laid his fingers tenderly upon the child's head, "is
+in your hands now." He paused. "And my life, Claire--that is yours, too,
+to deal with, as you will."
+
+She lifted her head.
+
+The wave of emotion had passed and left her calm again. The haggardness,
+the anxious lines, were smoothed. Only in her eyes remained the mist of
+unshed tears. And as the mist sinks from the face of the risen sun, so
+the shadow of passed sorrow fled before her dawning smile. Slowly she
+came towards him.
+
+With a sigh of infinite content her hands reached out to--and placed
+their surrender in--his.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+By E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM
+
+
+THE ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE
+
+Mr. Oppenheim's new story is a narrative of mystery and international
+intrigue that carries the reader breathless from page to page. It is the
+tale of the secret and world-startling methods employed by the Emperor
+of Japan through Prince Maiyo, his close kinsman, to ascertain the real
+reasons for the around-the-world cruise of the American fleet. The
+American Ambassador in London and the Duke of Denvenham, an influential
+Englishman, work hand in hand to circumvent the Oriental plot, which
+proceeds mysteriously to the last page. From the time when Mr. Hamilton
+Fynes steps from the _Lusitania_ into a special tug, in his mad rush
+towards London, to the very end, the reader is carried from deep mystery
+to tense situations, until finally the explanation is reached in a most
+unexpected and unusual climax.
+
+No man of this generation has so much facility of expression, so many
+technical resources, or so fine a power of narration as Mr. E. Phillips
+Oppenheim.--_Philadelphia Inquirer._
+
+Mr. Oppenheim is a past master of the art of constructing ingenious
+plots and weaving them around attractive characters.--_London Morning
+Post._
+
+
+
+
+By ANTHONY PARTRIDGE
+
+The Author of "The Kingdom of Earth"
+
+
+PASSERS-BY
+
+This new novel by Anthony Partridge, whose absorbing romance, "The
+Kingdom of Earth," met with instant favor, has London for its scene. But
+when you have read it you will admit that real London, as well as
+imaginary Bergeland, is a source of fascinating romance.
+
+The heroine of "Passers-By" is a street singer, Christine, who comes to
+London accompanied by Ambrose Drake, a hunchback, with a piano and a
+monkey. The fortunes of these two are strangely linked with those of an
+English statesman, the Marquis of Ellingham, who in his youth has led a
+wild and criminal career in Paris as the leader of a band of thieves and
+gamblers, the Black Foxes. Here is the material for a thrilling tale in
+which mystery breeds adventure and culminates in love.
+
+The first chapter plunges the reader into an interest-compelling maze of
+events, and the attention is held to the end by a series of dramatic
+situations and surprises.
+
+Mr. Partridge is now reckoned among the favorite novelists of the day.
+His first book was "The Distributors," the story of a great London
+mystery. Then came "The Kingdom of Earth," one of the popular novels of
+1909. "Passers-By" is his third book.
+
+
+
+
+_By_ JOHN IRONSIDE
+
+THE RED SYMBOL
+
+_A Swiftly Moving Mystery Story_
+
+
+Here is a tale of love, mystery, and adventure, that opens with a rush
+and holds the interest unflagging to the end. If you like a stirring
+love story, prepare to be fascinated by the charming but baffling
+heroine; if you enjoy an absorbing mystery, be ready to cudgel your
+brains over a perplexing one; if you care for adventures that thrill,
+follow Maurice Wynn through the mad whirl of events that befall him when
+he goes to Russia and becomes involved with a secret society of
+Nihilists. Better yet, if you're fond of a rattling good yarn, one which
+combines all three elements, love, mystery, and action, in just the
+right proportions, take up "The Red Symbol," and when you have turned
+the last page, with nerves all tingling, you will regret that you're not
+just starting.
+
+This swiftly moving narrative promises to be one of the most popular
+novels of 1910.
+
+
+
+
+By MRS. CHARLES N. CREWDSON
+
+AN AMERICAN BABY ABROAD
+
+
+When the American baby's mother hurries off from London to Egypt, where
+her husband is ill with fever, the baby, in company with its colored
+nurse and a friend of its mother's, follows more leisurely. The trio
+stop at Oberammergau to see the Passion Play, in Rome to witness a
+special mass conducted by Pope Leo,--in a word, do more or less
+sightseeing, until they finally reach Cairo, where much more exciting
+events befall them. The description of the places they visit is enhanced
+by a pleasant vein of humor, and an attractive love episode sustains the
+interest. It is an extremely entertaining story, light and vivacious,
+with brisk dialogue and diverting situations--just the book for summer
+reading.
+
+A series of characteristic pictures, by the well-known artist, Mr. R. F.
+Outcault, and Modest Stein gives additional charm to the volume.
+
+
+
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