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 dozenalbergarsandcervecerias. 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 feluccaSanta 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.
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, youdog!" 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.
As the imperturbable Mr. Miller reached the deck of theSanta 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, theinsouciantaspect 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.Domaniormañanaare 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 successfulcoups, 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.
"Butmyscheme 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.
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—hurtyou!"
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.
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. TheSanta Margaritaleaped 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. TheSanta Margaritacame 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 droppingaguardientebetween 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!"