CHAPTER XX
AYLMER CLIMBS--AND FALLS
The door of the lazaret was pulled quietly back. The opening showedMiller, silhouetted as in a frame, a splash of sunshine which floweddown into the outer cabin hanging in a golden halo, as it were, behindhis remarkably solid looking head. Coming from the full light into thedarkness--for the lamp was already flickering to final extinction--heblinked. And there was something unhuman in his aspect as he stoodthere, searching the gloom with his impassive eyes, something notaltogether 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 bya little deferential movement--a bow which seemed to deprecate, or evencriticize, the circumstance of her surroundings. He smiled, but withslightly raised eyebrows, and as his glance travelled on to meetAylmer's there was a hint of suggestion in it. It was a glance, at anyrate, which was responsible for the faint flush which rose to the girl'scheek and for the hardening of Aylmer's lips. For some reason unknowneven to himself, the latter's bound arms instinctively moved towards thechild, 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 thegray man, meditatively. "We could call it Innocence, could we not?"
Again he looked from one to the other with that questioning, suggestiveglance which somehow seemed to deprecate, and yet, at the same time,imply equivocation. Neither answered him, and he made an energeticgesture--one which relegated trivialities to forgetfulness.
"I must be a source of wonder to you; I am to myself!" he cried. "Toallow myself to be trapped into such trifling at such a moment! It isthe artistic temperament; you must address your amazement to it and yourforgiveness 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 detentionhere is not necessary. They do not exact a parole from him, but theypermit me to loose his lower limbs and to give him the freedom of thedeck. It is because his release implies your own that this concessiongives me--and him--undoubted pleasure."
He stooped as he finished speaking, and quickly and deftly unlashed thecords at Aylmer's ankles and, with a jerk, pulled him to his feet. Heshrugged his shoulders as he looked at the still tethered hands.
"I fear I am helpless there, my dear fellow," he said. "Complete rightsof enfranchisement were not allowed me."
Claire parted her lips as if to speak, hesitated, and pressed themfirmly together again. The shackling of those wrists was a mere blindbut--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 thisconcession? Where are we? What are they doing with us? What is ourdestination?"
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 himhow unnecessary it was to antagonize a man with whom he would eventuallyhave to chaffer. That was mere common-sense, was it not?"
"Chaffer?" repeated Aylmer. He considered Miller; for an appreciablemoment he surveyed him silently. "That implies a bargain, and to bargainthere 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 haveset myself to clean our name of the stigmas with which he had bedaubedit. There are no terms to be made."
"You sacrifice yourself?" said Miller. He paused. "Have you the right tosacrifice others?"
"No," said Aylmer, quietly. "You and Miss Van Arlen must do exactly whatseems best for yourselves. That is a deal apart."
Miller shook his head.
"No, my dear Captain Aylmer," he answered. "That is exactly what it isnot. 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 fatherthe sum of twenty-five thousand pounds. For your nephew, double thatamount. For myself, I must apologize for placing myself next, but thefinancial sequence necessitates it, ten thousand. For our friendhere--nothing, or, to be precise, nothing in cash."
She did not flinch as he mentioned the sums. She merely lookedcontemptuous.
"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. Whathas happened is as if it had never been. You are to allow him to takehis place unquestioned in the society which befits his rank. He wishesto turn a new leaf."
Aylmer met the look with blank incredulity, at first. Then his lipstightened with determination.
"And you?" he cried. "You are taking him seriously? You are going togive 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 thinprehensile fingers picked at a loose splinter in the bulkhead.
"I think he would find a way," he said slowly. "I think--in fact he hasthreatened it--he would--_hurt_ you!"
Aylmer stared at the gray figure, puzzled, frowning. Miller had used anew voice for the two last syllables, a voice that shook ever soslightly with some concealed emotion. "Hurt you," he reiterated sharply,and then darted a quick, bird-like glance at Aylmer--a look full ofinterrogation.
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 quitewhole-heartedly. Miller's eyebrows proclaimed their owner'sastonishment.
"Melodrama!" explained Aylmer, still chuckling. "I remember Landon as asmall boy, even before his Eton days. He bred these leanings then. Hewasted his pocket money on 'bloods,' I think they are called--pennyexhilarators for youths of tender years, crammed with impossiblevillainies. And now he is going to tie flaming splinters between myfingers and squeeze my thumbs in the crack of the door! This is theprice I am to pay for refusing him social rehabilitation. We cannotcongratulate him on his sense of humor, we really cannot."
Miller paused over his reply, looked down, looked up, and then bridged amoment 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 takeadvantage of his concessions to come and see." He gave another littleconfident nod to usher the other two before him. As the child ranforward he caught him up with his bound hands and raised him shoulderhigh. Then, stooping, he passed out at Miller's heels on to the deck. Hewas laughing still, laughing up at the boy as the childish fingerssteadied themselves in his hair.
"You won't be able to do that when they shave it to put the pitchplaster on," he cried. "And when they've stretched me on the rack, Ishall be too tall to carry you out of a cabin. And as for being a pigman 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 thefirst figure which caught his eye. The Moor was sitting on the gunwaleopposite the companion, looking shoreward. And the shore, to Aylmer'ssurprise, was very near on the starboard bow.
Suddenly he realized that it was not the mainland which he saw, but anarchipelago of islands girdled with reefs. Rockbound channels wereframes to pictures of the dun red African strand half a dozen milesaway.
He looked aft. The sun was not far from its setting, hanging in a reddisc above the distant hills of Algeria. The captain was at the tiller.Beside him lounged Landon, watching a gray-painted torpedo boat whichhad emerged from the shelter of the islands and was about to pass closeunder their stern. The gold and crimson of the Spanish naval ensignfloated at her flagstaff.
Landon looked round as he heard the footsteps of the newcomers on thedeck. He nodded them a greeting without changing his seat, and did itwith a studied air of contempt.
"Well?" he said laconically.
Aylmer was silent. His glance traveled over Landon's head to examine thewar vessel as it passed.
The captain grunted something in an undertone. Landon laughed, and heldup the first and fourth fingers of his right hand horn-wise.
"The good Luigi advises me to avert the evil eye," he explained. "Doesthat glance of yours threaten us, my affectionate cousin, does it?"
Aylmer sat back upon the boom and looked at the other squarely. Thechild scrambled from his shoulder and went back along the deck to standat Muhammed's knee. But the Moor, after a quick, welcoming smile, showedno further recognition of his presence. His glance, the glances, indeed,of all on board, centered in the meeting of the two who eyed each otheracross 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 crassincapability of understanding your own case. Order, respectability, goodfeeling, as you call it--these have been propping you all your life. Youdon't understand--how should you?--what it is to be in the hands of aman 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 Igive nothing--nothing!"
"And yet chaffer to obtain them," said Aylmer, drily.
"I don't chaffer; I take," said Landon. "I am requiring them as merestage 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 themeans to buy them," said Aylmer.
"Haven't I?" said Landon, slowly. "Haven't I?" He rose from his seat andcame a pace or two nearer. "Listen to me, you--you blazing fool!" hesnarled. "I have you here to break, as I will. See that you don't goadme into doing it, for the mere pleasure of seeing you squirm. You giveme your promise to accept me, push me forward, vouch for me, in therotten mob you call society, or, by God, you'll be sorry before I'vedone 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. "Mylife? Do you think that has a value for me above the hope of clearingyou 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 towardsMiller, not towards his cousin; "by the Lord, am I to keep my hands offhim--after that?"
There was a sort of appeal in the question. There was malignance, therewas 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; hehas, indeed!"
Landon laughed malevolently.
"By God, I have!" he cried. "Your thick body and your ox's nerves? Youcan pit them against me, if you like! What about your finer feelings, asI suppose you'd call them? What about your honor? And--whatabout--_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 fromthe full height of his stature and that, indeed, seemed to have addedinches 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 defyme, you shall have something more to look at before long! I'll deal withher; I'll let these men have their will of her; I'll drag her throughfilth enough--I'll--"
His voice broke hideously into a shriek of pain. Aylmer had flung offthe lashings on his wrists and continued the movement, as it were, intoone direct, smashing blow on Landon's mouth!
And Landon fell as a log falls, stark, inert, his head meeting thetiller end in his fall with frightful emphasis. He rolled into thescuppers at the captain's feet, bloody, disfigured, unconscious as thedeck 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 handsstretched out for him, and sprang for the rigging. Within the space ofseconds he was standing upon the great cross spar of the lateen, leaningagainst the mast, and waving his arms in semaphore-wise towards the graystern of the torpedo boat as she slid away against the disc of thesetting sun.
The captain yelled aloud with fury.
"He is signalling to them!" he screamed. "God's Mother! If they see himwe're undone!"
A sudden light gleamed in Claire's eyes, a light of hope, of reliefand--bright above them all--admiration. This was a man. Her woman'sblood quickened to the knowledge that his man's strength had been usedbrutally, splendidly, for her. She cried aloud her encouragement. Shewaved her hand.
"Make them see you, make them!" she called. She beat her open hand uponthe taffrail in her passion.
The gunboat slowed. Half a dozen signal flags rushed up to her peak. Thewhite foam of her wake disappeared slowly with the stopping of herengines. Captain Luigi cried out again; he addressed invectives tothings terrestrial and to celestial things apostrophes at a set value incandles, using both forms of eloquence impartially to goad hishesitating deck hands to pull Aylmer from his eyrie at the risk of theirlives. 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 nothear or, perhaps, in the intentness of his task, did not heed. She criedout again.
Too late!
The two men flung themselves upon the ropes which held the great lateenyard in place, slacked them, payed them out suddenly a couple of yards.Aylmer tottered, rocked forward, and then maintained his hand hold uponthe mast. But this time the men reversed the operation. With atremendous effort they jerked the ropes. The spar leaped upwards!
And Aylmer shot into the air and landed stunningly upon the planking atClaire Van Arlen's feet.