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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.