ONE SIDE OF A BARGAIN
"It's the pig man," said a childish voice. "The man what lifted me out
of the way of the boar."
Aylmer blinked. Himself in the shadow, he was aware of a figure opposite
him in the center of a circle of light. He lay, apparently, in a
circular and unfurnished room, lit by an unglazed skylight alone. The
figure, which sat cross-legged on a lump which his returning senses
discovered to be a dead horse, wore the white _haik_ and the bournous of
a Moor. The hood was drawn back, showing bronzed aquiline features and a
brown beard, but the man's eyes were blue. Aylmer studied the face with
a feeling of bewilderment which gradually became irritation. He was
stunned, but consciousness had so far returned that he knew himself
stunned, and knew, also, that his brain was confronting a problem which
his normal powers would have grappled with easily. He ought to be able
to recognize his visitor; there was familiarity, there was recognition
in the man's sneering smile. And yet, who was he? Aylmer moved
restlessly, petulantly. An excruciating pang leaped up through his
shoulder and made him gasp. The man shrugged his shoulders.
"Dislocated, I fear," he said in level English accents. "And the
collar-bone most certainly fractured."
Aylmer's ear served him where his eyes had failed. The voice was
Landon's. It was his cousin who sat opposite him, smiling evilly from
the shadow of the _haik_.
Something touched the wounded shoulder lightly, but not so lightly but
that Aylmer winced again.
"Poor--poor!" said the childish voice again commiseratingly. "Is it
badly hurted? When I fell off my pony they rubbed me wiv butter."
It was his little namesake, swaddled in white flowing garments, who
stood at his elbow, peering into his face with anxious eyes.
Aylmer pulled himself into a sitting position, not without intense pain.
But the throb of his wounded arm seemed to awake his dulled
consciousness. He looked from father to son without bewilderment. His
understanding had fully regained command of the situation.
His first action was typical of the man; he fumbled with his left hand
at his holster.
Landon laughed.
"Empty, my dear John," he said. "Fogs, gales, the menacing hand of
nature I do not pretend to have my remedy for. But I retain the
common-sense which deprives my enemy of a weapon, when opportunity is my
friend."
Aylmer was still silent. Landon gave a self-satisfied little nod of the
head, a little motion which implied the insolence of triumph fully
enjoyed.
"And by opportunity, please understand that I do not refer to mere
chance," he went on. "The little _ruse de guerre_ by which you and your
associates were drawn into this trap was the product of an active brain,
not mine, I grieve to say. A friend who has seen much of desert
bickerings did not invent but adapted it. I don't think many of your
beautiful Goumiers escaped him and his allies."
There was something more than disgust and repulsion in the glance with
which Aylmer regarded his cousin. It was, perhaps, wonder.
"Libertine--blackmailer--spy--and thief--you have proved yourself all of
these within the space of half a dozen years," he said quietly. "And
now, traitor, and, I suppose, assassin. It puzzles me. Clean living
isn't so hard, and yet, you have never tried it, never!"
A queer line showed in Landon's cheek, as his lips tightened against
each other. And then he laughed again--a harsh, unconvincing little
laugh.
"Is the first line of attack an appeal to my better nature?" he asked.
"Omit it, my friend. However good your aim, you cannot reach a target
which, to be frank, is non-existent. Appeals to my self-interest find me
alert, but to my conscience, chill as ice. We may chaffer, you and I,
but on strictly business lines."
He settled himself back upon the dead horse's shoulder, pulled out a
silver case, and selected a cigarette. He lit it, talking slowly,
between puffs.
"My apparently unkinsmanlike conduct in offering no attention to your
wound is easily explained. It is a small matter, involved in far larger
issues. If you meet my terms, our limited resources in that and other
matters will be at your service. If not--" He shrugged his shoulders
placidly. "Well, I do not suppose a prison governor pays attention to
the condemned's complaints of his breakfast egg on the morning of
execution."
He moved, leaning forward at last, his elbows on his knees, his palms
supporting his chin. And he looked down at Aylmer malignantly.
"And I have you here to make or break as I will," he said. "By God!
Opportunity doesn't call me twice. I clutch her!"
The child turned with a little start, looking at his father with puzzled
but not apprehensive eyes. The note of malice in that voice was
evidently strange to him, and Aylmer, as he understood this fact,
breathed a tiny sigh of relief. The child, at any rate, did not suffer
ill-treatment.
Landon saw the motion and his features relaxed into something like
affection.
He held out his hands.
"Come here, my son," he said. "Go and find Muhammed."
As the child ran forward, he caught him deftly and without a pause of
energy tossed him up and out into the sunlight. Aylmer heard the boy's
cry of welcome and laugh of delight, as his footsteps pattered over the
roof of the cellar and were lost. Muhammed, whoever that might be, was
evidently not far away.
His father settled down upon his seat again.
"That," he said, with an upward jerk of the shoulder towards the opening
above his head, "that is one of the things I have been robbed of. Also
my comfort, my credit, my security, my ease. I have had to endure
unpleasantness. I have had to descend, though as a mental exercise I do
not count it a descent, to crime. Life, in fact, has been difficult for
me lately, owing to the action of certain people--with whom you appear
to have allied yourself. You and they have to get matters in a different
perspective. Your efforts in future must be for, not against, me. They
must, indeed, be directed to effacing unfortunate circumstances in the
past which are detrimental to my well-being. That must be fully
understood before we even begin to talk of terms."
He looked up at Aylmer with a sudden quick, speculative flash of the
eyes. The other met it steadily and equably.
"Have we begun--to discuss terms?" he asked.
"No!" Landon snapped the monosyllable with contemptuous emphasis. "No! I
don't discuss them, let me tell you. I make them!"
Aylmer met the announcement with a smile.
"Ah," he said quietly, and something in his tone seemed to whip Landon's
restrained spite over the border-line of fury.
"Damn you!" he cried, "do you think I can't and won't humble the lot of
you; do you think I'm to be robbed of the winning ace now, when I've got
it in my hand? I tell you there isn't a thing in me you can appeal to.
I've shunted notions; I'm out for the stuff; I'm in business for myself,
for me!"
He swayed to and fro upon the carcase, his face livid, his fingers
unconsciously twining and plaiting the dead animal's mane. His teeth
flashed, attracting, as it were, the core of the little light which
reached the gloom--attracting it to intensify his fierce animal fury.
For, as he swayed, and swore, the teeth shone behind his red lips like
the fangs of a cornered wolf.
And then, suddenly, darkly, the emotion was planed from his face. His
features became mask-like in their imperturbability.
"You had better listen carefully," he said. "First, I keep the boy. That
goes without saying. I've got him. Secondly, they give me their
engagement under bond not to molest me in my possession of him if I
choose to visit America or England, or even if I marry again. Thirdly,
old man Van Arlen pays me ten thousand pounds--pounds, mind, not
dollars--within a week from now, and on the same date every year.
Fourthly, you explain away the matter of the book I borrowed from your
library. Explain it as you like; say I was drunk or insane or any sort
of lie which suits you best. You'll have to give me your word of honor
to do your best about that; I'll take it, because I know you believe in
these shibboleths. Lastly, they're to keep quiet while I have a free
hand with Despard."
Aylmer gave an involuntary start, and Landon snarled--there is no other
word for it--with savage rage.
"By God, they've got to stand by and see me break him! He's hunted me
through the courts and through the press of two hemispheres. He shall
have his turn. Not all in a moment, either. A word here and a word
there. A paragraph or two where they can't well be missed. Then rumors,
and then a circumstantial story. Rush him into action and then, slowly,
thoroughly, and perfectly plainly, bowl him out. Eh, that will be the
gilded roof on the whole thing. Despard down in the mud--Despard ...
broken!"
His fingers ceased their wandering. He sat motionless, his eyes staring
gloatingly into the gloom over Aylmer's head. It was as if he saw
visions of evil triumph limned upon the walls.
Aylmer lay very still. The sense of inertia which had been overpowering
when consciousness first revived was passing away. His brain was clear.
He realized that for all practical purposes he was in the hands of a
madman, or of a man so far enthralled by a very possession of wickedness
that he might be reckoned insane. There was nothing to do but await
events.
Landon dropped his eyes.
"Do you see?" he asked. "That's your job. To go to them and tell them.
Do you understand?"
Aylmer shook his head.
"I hear your price--for what?" he asked. "It's a one-sided bargain, so
far."
"The goods that I have to deliver," said Landon, slowly, "are what I put
safely out of your way a moment ago. That boy's health, and mental
and--moral, too, if you like--strength. Do you get the notion?"
For a moment the silence remained unbroken. Then Aylmer spoke.
"You devil!" he said slowly. "You incarnate fiend!"
Landon laughed again, with complacent satisfaction.
"You do get the notion," he said. "Let your mind dwell upon it, give it
deliberation. I sha'n't kill the boy, oh, not for a long time. I shall
keep him alive; he'll even enjoy the process. I'll bring him up
carefully, very carefully. There isn't a form of life as I've seen it
that he sha'n't be familiar with. You may hunt me from England; you may
make it hot for me in Europe and America. There are plenty of lively
resorts in this good old continent of Africa which will amply fulfill my
purpose. I'll put him through the mill; I'll begin early, too. I sha'n't
leave much to luck. If by any chance you brought about my death, and I
credit you with grit enough to attempt it, you'll find the kid
well-grounded. He shall be his father's son, and a bit more. I hadn't
the advantages he's going to have."
The flush of anger which had mounted to Aylmer's face was gone now. He
looked at Landon keenly, indeed, but with more curiosity than wrath.
His voice was quite controlled.
"And in the alternative?" he asked. "In any case you keep him. What do
we gain by meeting your terms?"
Landon shrugged his shoulders.
"He has his chance, then, against the World, the Flesh and the Devil
with the rest of them. I sha'n't pose as a saint before him, but I'll
see that he behaves himself decently and plays the game. He'll go to
Eton and Balliol, if he has the sense. I sha'n't send him to
Sunday-school but he'll attend church on Sundays--once. I'll choose his
tailor and put him in the way of things. He'll learn, in fact, how to
conduct himself as an ordinary English gentleman."
Aylmer nodded.
"From whom?" he asked quietly.
And then Landon flinched. The eyes which had been bent on his cousin
with eagerness, with greed alight in them, quivered. He gave a little
intake of the breath.
"You cursed prig!" he breathed thickly. "You cursed prig!"
Aylmer smiled.
"You've been out of it too long, Landon," he said. "For over a year I
suppose your only familiars have been Bowery ruffians or Soho
blackmailers. Did you think this could be done? Did you really make
yourself believe that I was likely to be an easy intermediary for such a
proposition? And I imagine that you forget that it was entirely for your
wife's sake that your father-in-law dealt gently with you during your
married life. There's no need for any restraint in that quarter now."
Landon made a gesture of contempt.
"Are you making threats for that old tame cat?" he sneered.
"He's got claws that will reach out to scratch you at the world's end,
my amiable cousin. They're made of dollars. And they'll be sharpened
with American grit. Uncommon unpleasant, you'll find them."
Landon snapped his fingers.
"That for his dollars and his grit!" he cried. "It's no good raising
your bluff on me. I'll see you every time, see you and take it! Leave it
out; don't waste time over it. Are you going to carry my message to
them, or are you not?"
"No," said Aylmer. "You knew perfectly well what my answer was going to
be, but if it's any satisfaction to you to have it--No!"
Landon leaned forward.
"I guessed what your high falutin' ideas would answer," he said, "but
I'm talking to you--to you about yourself." He pointed to the well-like
opening above his head. "Do you believe that you could climb out of
there with a broken collar-bone?" he asked.
Aylmer glanced quickly in the direction of the extended finger.
"Perhaps not," he answered.
Landon nodded.
"You don't know what superhuman exertions a man will contrive when he is
perishing--of thirst," he said. "But even he couldn't move the slab of
stone which ten men will drag over that opening, if I bid them. And that
will be now, if you don't come off your high horse. This isn't a healthy
place for my friends of the Beni M'Geel. We have to be moving on
immediately."
A sudden quiver that perhaps was nearly akin to fear pulsed up into
Aylmer's brain, showed, indeed, in his eyes. The fever of his wound was
already upon him; his lips were parched, his tongue swollen. To be left
in that pit--to be sealed in--to die?
Landon grinned.
"Eh?" he questioned. "Are second thoughts best? Do you begin to
understand?"
For a moment or two the stillness remained unbroken, and in Aylmer's
gaze there was little still but wonder--wonder that things like Landon
should continue to exist in this prosy work-a-day world of ours.
Opportunities for unleashing a real lust of cruelty and evil come to few
of us. We argue therefore that they do not occur. A common error. A
glance at the pages of half a dozen reports of philanthropic societies
will refute it, but we, who are not engaged in social reform, are lost
in amazement at the monsters when we meet them. It was incredulity which
was in Aylmer's mind, and incredulity Landon imagined to be
deliberation.
"There are no two ways to it!" he cried sharply. "Don't think that. It's
yes or no, now and here!"
Aylmer made a wearily contemptuous gesture.
"Haven't you had your answer?" he said. "It's no; it would be no if I
had a thousand chances to say it--no--no--no!"
Landon rose. He looked down at the man at his feet malignantly,
suspiciously. He shouted in Spanish to some unseen listener outside. The
end of a rope was dropped down through the opening. Methodically Landon
knotted it about the dead horse's neck and forelegs.
"No, my friend," he said, as if in answer to some unspoken question,
"you aren't going to exist by munching this dead brute's flesh or
sucking its blood till help comes, if it comes at all. You are going to
be left in here with no more company than your own obstinacy, alone."
He shouted again. The rope tautened. Landon seized it, and with a couple
of energetic jerks swung himself up into the sunshine. And then the
carcase rose, dragged a little on the floor, and in its turn was hauled
out of sight. The cellar loomed larger, gloomier, emptier when it was
gone. There was another dragging sound. Half the light which filtered
through the opening was eclipsed.
Landon's voice rang hollow in the underground echoes.
"Is it no, still, you fool?" he snarled.
There was no answer.
With a curse, Landon made a significant motion of the hand. The brawny
Arab shoulders were bent and their thews tightened. The great slab slid
into its appointed place.