AYLMER IS EXPLICIT
It seemed to Aylmer that the world into which he woke was one of
stillness, of neutral tints, of intrinsic peace. There was a hint of
sunshine diluted by the green hangings in front of the windows, but no
more than a hint. There was a faint echo of the sound of falling water
floating in with the light, but merely an echo. There was, in fact, but
the slightest suggestion of life in his surroundings, and that came from
the silently regular rise and fall of the bosom of the sleeping man who
sat at his bedside. Aylmer blinked and stared in mild surprise, for the
man was Daoud.
He moved restlessly under the sheets. Where was he? Into what unsought
refuge had Fate flung him now?
His movement, slight as it was, aroused the Moor. With a little
self-reproachful exclamation he stood up and leaned over the bed.
"Oh, Sidi!" he cried, "it rejoices my heart to read the light of
understanding in your eyes."
Aylmer blinked again bewilderedly.
"Where am I and what do you here?" he asked.
"You are in Villa Eulalia, Sidi, and where should I be but in attendance
on my lord?"
Astonishment lifted Aylmer into a weak attempt to rise. The Moor put a
hand upon his shoulder and firmly pressed him back.
"Nay, Sidi," he said respectfully. "The German doctor lord expressly
forbade that you should raise your head from the pillow till he had seen
you again."
Aylmer began to feel as if his wits as well as his body had been
bludgeoned. Circumstances seemed to have leaped freakishly beyond his
recollection.
"I was brought here when?" he asked.
"Yesterday, Sidi. Your brain was sorely smitten inside your skull, or so
I understood the man of medicines. For fifteen hours you have lain as
one feigning death, though breathing. Now you have come into the right
of your senses again. This the medicine man also prophesied."
The puzzled frown stayed on Aylmer's brow.
"And you?" he demanded. "And you?"
The Moor answered with a demure shrug of the shoulder.
"Your wounded brain has perchance forgotten, Sidi, that I entered your
benign service on the morning of the day which saw you defeated by the
treachery of that one whom we sought, you and I. My service has been
constant ever since."
He met his victim's increasing frown with complacent assurance as he
spoke. Surely everything, he seemed to imply, was in order. And as the
situation became clear to Aylmer's growing intelligence, the frown
became an exasperated smile.
"You have used my helplessness to impose yourself into this house as my
body-servant," said Aylmer. "Oh, Daoud, you are of a deceitfulness
beyond my unpractised powers of speech."
"Speech beyond the mere limits of necessity was strongly discountenanced
by the German doctor lord," said Daoud, hastily. "Has the Sidi any
further desires?"
"None, save for information. Speak thou! Give me the plain tale of all
happenings since I fell into that trap upon the road. The man we
sought--did he escape?"
The Moor nodded.
"He escaped victoriously, with all his following. He took also the
child, the Sidi Jan, who, so they tell me, is the son of his house. They
took themselves unmolested into the tangle of the broom, leaving of our
company one dead--from the kick of a horse, Sidi--half a dozen
senseless, yourself among them, Absalaam grievously wounded in the
bosom, though like to recover, and all, save four or five, with bruises,
broken limbs, or, at least, frayed and bleeding skin. So they fled, but
Ali, of the Walad Said, who had been flung away from the hardness of the
open track into the heart of the thicket, had taken no harm and followed
them to the caves."
Aylmer gave a start.
"The caves?" he muttered weakly. "The caves?"
"The Sidi knows them well. The caves of Hercules beyond Spartel, where
the millstone carvers ply their toil and where the Sidi and other
Nazrani ride forth to eat and drink upon occasion when they entertain
their friends."
Aylmer nodded. The caves of Hercules are the resort of many a picnic
party from Tangier.
"Leaving them there, he hastened back with news. The Sidi Van Arlen,
lord of this house, was by then recovered of the stunning which he, too,
had suffered, and weak though he was immediately led forth another
company to search the caves. And this they did unsuccessfully, Sidi,
learning from one of the millstone workers, who had doubted of the
integrity of these sons of dirt before they saw him, and who had
therefore hidden himself and watched them unseen, that after a rest of
three or four hours the men, taking with them the child, had passed down
to the shore, had there awaited and been taken off by a boat which
delivered them, so he conceived, to a lateen which he could descry in
the moonlight about three furlongs out. And in that ship they have gone
we know not whither."
Aylmer's fingers clenched and unclenched upon the coverlet. How
thoroughly, how absolutely, they had been bested! But the account was
rolling up. Ultimate defeat? His mind never even considered it. He
merely put another item in the mental ledger from which Landon's account
would one day be presented, and paid, in full.
"Let not the Sidi imagine that we have sat inactive while these sons of
unchaste mothers triumph. I myself snatched a hasty hour from your
bedside to enter the town and set certain ones agog for news. The Sidi
Van Arlen hath telegraphed to Spain; every Guardia Civile along the
coast has knowledge of how a reward of a thousand pesetas may be gained.
By favor of the captain of the French warship all other ships of the
French marine within three hundred miles have been warned to challenge
unvouched-for boats. How this is done I am unable to say, but so it is.
Watch upon the seas is therefore being kept. Now steam is being raised
upon the white yacht in the bay, that when news comes it may be followed
without delay. Lastly, a special mission has been sent by favor of the
Bashaw from town to town along the coast as far as Dar-el-Baida. Thus
have we set a wide net. Yet it has holes in it, Sidi, and holes are what
these jackals are ever quick to seek."
With a sudden movement, Aylmer sat up. A frown and a gesture of command
warded back Daoud's outstretched hand.
"Art thou my servant?" he cried, and the Moor spread out his palms in
alert assent.
"Of a surety, Sidi, but the dispenser of medicines--"
"What have I to do with medicines--I, a strong man with no more than a
bruised skull? Give me my clothes!"
"But, Sidi--"
"My clothes, or return instantly to the gutter from which my favor
yesterday lifted you!"
The Moor gave a fatalistic shrug.
"If Allah has written it that you are to die by the weapon of thine own
obstinacy, oh, Sidi, He has written it. This is thy shirt."
With an accustomedness which spoke of previous practice, he presided
over his master's toilet. He fetched water, honed a razor, shaved Aylmer
with deftness and despatch, produced trousers from a press, handed coat
and waistcoat brushed and folded to the last pinnacle of neatness. It
was as he laced the boots that he looked up inquiringly and put a
question which had been obviously hanging upon his lips since the moment
of his master's rising.
"And what, oh, Sidi, are your intentions now?"
"First, to see my host. Afterwards," he made a vague gesture,
"afterwards, my friend, I shall act as is directed by your perpetual
gossip--Fate!"
"May Allah direct our councils!" aspired Daoud, piously. "Lean upon me,
Sidi! There is no need to overtax thy returning strength!"
But Aylmer leaned upon nothing. Slowly, but walking erect, he paced
across the wide entrance hall, and then halted, indeterminate.
The hangings across a door opposite him were drawn aside. Claire Van
Arlen stood confronting him, her lips parted in amazement.
"You!" she protested breathlessly. "You!"
He answered with a little bow.
"Myself," he said quietly. "I must present my excuses for an ...
intrusion which it was not within my power to prevent."
She held up her hand in protest.
"When you were wounded in our service!" she cried. "When you were doing
your best for us!"
He shook his head.
"No," he said. "I am working, I shall go on working, for myself. I
should like that to be clear."
She half turned away with a little startled motion and the ghost of a
frown. Words trembled on her lips and were thrust back. She understood,
and would have sought, at any other time, this opportunity to make
things clear indeed, but ... the man was wounded ... serving her and
hers. No, for the moment the opportunity must go by.
She held up the cord hangings and pointed into the room behind her.
"At any rate you must not stand, and I am extremely culpable to permit
your mutiny against your doctor's orders. Why have you got up?"
He strode slowly after her into the shadowed room. He sat down upon the
wicker chair which she indicated. His eyes sought hers, keenly and very
directly.
"You have no news?" he asked. "Nothing out of Spain, or from the coast?"
Her eyes clouded.
"None, or next to none. The signal station at Spartel saw a lateen
working her sweeps in the distance at dawn. There was a glassy calm
inshore, but occasional and uncertain breezes out of the shelter of the
land. She was making as if for Cadiz, but half an hour later, just as
the haze covered her, a strong wind rose from the northwest and it is
doubtful if she could have beaten up against it. In which case she
probably stood down the coast."
Her voice was apathetic and a little weary. Her glance avoided his.
He gave a little nod as she finished.
"Yes," he said. "He has taken the first trick--Landon. And I have been
no help to you but a hindrance. It was I who helped him last night--I,
with my impulsiveness. There you have a right ... to suspect me."
She made a quick, restless movement.
"Suspect you!" she cried. "You!"
"Yes," he said slowly. "That day in the town, and on the pier, at the
Tent Club meeting, even--was not that in your mind?"
His voice was not reproachful, merely inquiring.
She flushed.
"The first time I suspected every one," she answered. "The second time I
discovered, suddenly and unexpectedly, your name."
He nodded.
"And now?" he questioned. "And now?"
"Now?" she repeated. "Have you not given me my proofs?"
"Have I?" His voice was eager. "I can reckon that barrier down then? The
taint of the name is cleared away? I start with no handicap of
prejudice?"
Again the form of words half bewildered, half exasperated her. Start?
Start whither, in what race, to what goal? And were there barriers to be
won, too? Between him and--what?
Her instinct gave her the answer as it had done the day before. But she
shrank from the acknowledgment, even to herself. The thought was too
monstrous. An Aylmer and--and that! The blood rushed to her forehead on
the tide of her resentment. And then as suddenly ebbed. After all, was
it not the name alone which sent that surging throb of repulsion through
her veins? Supposing she had met this man, in ignorance. She started
again. Had she not so met him, at first? She cudgelled her brains in
reflection. How did she regard him that morning at the Tent Club, before
she knew? Had he not seemed a personable, even a gallant and courageous
soldier, worthy of a woman's regard? She looked at him suddenly,
curiously, with a sort of speculation in her eyes.
And he met the glance quietly, watchfully, and--so she told herself with
a recurrent thrill of exasperation--relentlessly as well. It was as if
he was forcing her to be won from prejudice to impartiality. As if he
willed her into just thinking against herself. A tiny spasm of fear
pulsed through her. In a clash of purpose who would win, she or this
man?
She made him a gesture which had about it the sense of appeal.
"One cannot dismiss prejudices; one can fight them," she faltered.
"Ah!"
He sighed, not with weariness, but with a sort of patience, with
restraint. "I think perhaps women do not accept mere justice as a plea
so easily as men," he debated. "So I must not presume on that footing. I
have still to win my way from ... dislike?"
"No!" she cried sharply. "No! I can be just to what you have done. What
you are--that I have yet to learn, have I not?"
He smiled a little bitterly.
"I am an Aylmer. That is the lesson you have got by heart. I ask you to
begin by unlearning."
She caught her breath a little quickly. Then she gave a decided little
nod.
"Very well," she answered. "I--I will forget everything but the fact
that you saved the boy once and that you--"
"Will do it again," said Aylmer. "That is a bargain?"
Again she hesitated over the form of words. A bargain? What was her side
of the contract. If he fulfilled the purpose of which he spoke so
confidently, what did it mean, from her point of view? She avoided the
issue.
"You will find the child, you will bring him back?" she wondered.
"Of course!" He sat very erect in his chair. He smiled confidently. "In
a fight between a rogue and honest men, the honest men win ultimately,
and always. The green bay tree of the unrighteous grows with luxuriance
but withers in time inevitably. I shall follow him till I win."
"And your career?" she asked incredulously. "Your profession?"
He smiled.
"That will be my career--to defeat Landon. Is it a reputable one for a
gentleman?"
She made a motion of protest.
"But--but that is self-sacrifice, one which we couldn't accept. Why
should you do this for us?"
He shook his head again.
"No," he said. "I must repeat it, I work for myself. I seek my own
interest, and that, in the first place, is to make you just. I see but
the one way to do it. I have to convince you that I am in earnest, have
I not?"
Again that baffling allusion. In earnest in what? In defeating Landon,
in attempting the rescue of the child? Surely he had proved that
already. And yet how could she counter a point which she could not help
allowing she now understood; how could she do it without the loss of
dignity implied in an explanation? But it was grotesque. He had known
her a bare week. He had met her on four occasions.
She looked up, met his eyes, and dropped her own. A tiny sense of panic
overtook her. He sat there, indomitable. Suppose--suppose he ultimately
made his purpose good. She made herself look at him again. He had, at
any rate, good looks to recommend him. And courage and the respect of
his fellows. But--again a wave of exasperation flowed over her mind. Oh,
it was outrageous, unthinkable. An Aylmer--another Aylmer. Unconsciously
her lips curved in a half sarcastic smile. Why, the very newspapers of
the world would pile headline upon headline over such a fiasco. She
stiffened with resentment, with a sense of being played with. Her voice
was chill with a note of dignity outraged.
"I think the fact of your proposing to devote time and strength to the
pursuit of--of your cousin is a very convincing one, Captain Aylmer,"
she answered. "The point is that we have no right to accept so much from
you."
He smiled joyously.
"I shall always want to be giving, to you. Always, always. Please
understand that. My service is to you, and so to myself. Try to think of
me in that light, patiently."
And then a sort of desperation seized her. She probed her mind for a
form of words which should give him no further loophole to persist in
his veiled menaces, for she could call them no less, one that should
seize a meaning out of his allusions and crush it with a directness
which could not be misunderstood. Her eyes grew hard; she rose to her
feet.
A step sounded in the hall, and the hangings were pushed aside. Her
father stood before them.
He looked at Aylmer with amazed reproach. His face, already haggard with
anxiety, took on new lines of concern.
"My dear sir!" he protested. "My dear sir!"
And Aylmer could not resist a smile. It was the form of protest which he
had used at their former meeting to veil--what? Antipathy? And now? The
words were full of genuine concern. He read no longer dislike in Mr. Van
Arlen's glance. The elder man's eyes had softened as they reached his.
He warded off further reproaches with a question.
"The news?" he cried eagerly. "The news is what?"
"Good, in so far that we can gauge the direction of their flight. They
have been seen passing Arzeila; the morning's gale has prevented their
attempt to reach any port of Spain."
"And so--?"
"And so we start in pursuit with my yacht, within the hour."
Aylmer stood up.
"We?" he repeated. "We being--?"
Van Arlen looked mildly astonished.
"My daughter and I."
Aylmer held out his hand with a pleading gesture.
"You can't afford to despise my help," he said. "You must take me, too."
Van Arlen looked at Aylmer and then, questioningly, towards his
daughter. She met his glance. Here at last was the opportunity to make
things plain with a vengeance. They had but politely to decline.
Aylmer's voice forestalled her.
"To be impartial, that was your promise," he said. "We had not got far,
but at least as far as that."
In spite of herself she turned and faced him. He met her glance
steadily, confidently, expectant.
She gave a queer, half-exasperated little laugh.
"I think Captain Aylmer is a man who is easily refused nothing," she
said, and passed quietly out of the room.