PERINAUD'S NEWS
A full mile out in the offing _The Morning Star_ swung at her anchorage,
dipping and swerving lazily over the incoming rush of the Atlantic
swell. The dawn-light was soft behind the white bastions of the town's
sea-wall; the harsh glare of the fully risen sun was yet to come. A
little boat put out from the shore, zigzagging across the wide lake
which is bounded on the south by the headland and on the north and west
by the ring of transports, merchantmen, and cuirasses of the French
Marine. She tacked and came about at short intervals as if those who
sailed her had need of haste, or at any rate of the distraction of
attempting speed even if it could not be attained. She sidled, at last,
towards the yacht's companion ladder.
Claire Van Arlen rose from her deck chair as the boat's sail dropped.
She walked towards the taffrail and looked down. She had used her
binoculars upon the little craft ever since its start from the shore,
and had finally recognized Daoud. His companion, a uniformed man, whose
long limbs seemed to occupy the whole of the space between stern and
stem, had his head swathed in bandages.
Daoud was the first to scramble aboard. He stood before her with bent
shoulders, the picture of dejection.
She breathed a little quickly.
"Yes?" she asked. "You have brought news--of what?"
The tall man swung himself off the ladder, drew himself upright, and
saluted.
"Mademoiselle, I am Sergeant Perinaud, attached to the office of the
military police here. I attended M. Aylmer during our ride in pursuit of
the man named Landon, who was escaping with certain desert knaves of the
Beni M'Geel. We overtook them--"
[Illustration: "_Mademoiselle, I am Sergeant Perinaud_"]
She interrupted with an exclamation of delight.
"You have the boy?" she cried. "You recovered him?"
He shook his head.
"No, Mademoiselle. We were betrayed into an unfortunate ambush. We lost
five men out of ten in addition to further losses at an earlier date in
the proceedings. Monsieur le Capitaine has been badly hurt."
He looked at her keenly with a sort of speculative curiosity. And Daoud
frowned. For there was no sign of commiseration in her glance. She
showed annoyance, almost disgust.
"You had your hands upon these men and they escaped you?" she cried.
"We were within a very little of arresting them, Mademoiselle, but by an
Arab trick in which I regret to say they showed more intelligence than
we were capable of divining, they defeated us. I am directed by Major
d'Hubert to report to you fully on the incident if you desire it."
She made a vehement gesture.
"If!" she cried. "If!"
With an accession of woodenness in his demeanor, the sergeant drew
himself up yet more stiffly, repeated his salute, and in a few precise
words gave the story of the pursuit. But, as he described Aylmer's fall,
it was to be noted that his voice and bearing relaxed. A tinge of the
dramatic colored his level tones. His eyes--his hands were called upon
to emphasize the description of the headlong plunge into the black trap
of the silo--indicated the feelings of an onlooker rather than a mere
reporter, as he described the sealing of the prison mouth. And as she
listened, she gave a little gasp. In the background Daoud flung his
colleague a little nod of approval.
"And then?" she asked breathlessly. "And then?"
"I was unhorsed, Mademoiselle, and somewhat beaten about the head, as is
evident. I found shelter in a neighboring patch of mallow, where, after
a season, I was joined by my friend here. The Beni M'Geel having
departed, we watched their route as a matter of precaution for a mile or
two, and then returned. We were unable to deal with the slab upon the
cellar mouth."
This time his voice had been level enough, but he made his pause
effective.
She gasped again.
"You left him there?"
He smiled.
"Yes, Mademoiselle, but not without rendering him assistance. Not being
able to remove the stone, we merely dug another entrance. The outer
earth was hard and baked, but after pecking off a few inches with our
knives we fetched water from the river and easily softened it. We
fashioned a couple of wooden shovels. Thus we dug down into the prison
in an hour or two. We found the captain delirious."
"Yes?" she said again, eagerly. "You brought him away?"
"Mademoiselle forgets that we had no horses. Daoud remained with him. I
walked to our nearest outpost--at Ain Djemma--to fetch assistance."
His tones were absolutely matter of fact, but some instinct of
comprehension made her look at him yet more keenly and thus note the
weariness which his voice could hide, but not his drawn features.
"You walked, how far?" she questioned.
"I have no exact idea, Mademoiselle. For some hours. I could not obtain
a surgeon; there was but one at the post and his hands were full. An
orderly of the ambulance came with me with a _cacolet_ and a small
escort of Chasseurs. But we have not dared to remove the captain, whose
fever has reached a serious height. The orderly advised that I should
come direct to the town and obtain either medical help, or, if possible,
one of the _Dames de la Croix Rouge_. But there is an epidemic of fever
at the hospital and an influx of wounded from the Tirailleurs' foray of
four days back. Neither surgeon nor nurse can be spared for one man."
For a moment there was silence again. Perinaud looked at her with a sort
of questioning apathy, with the detached air of one having done his duty
and awaiting the decrees of fate. But Daoud moved restlessly, and then
broke into speech, as if some irresistible impulse moved him.
"I think my master is likely to die, Mademoiselle," he said.
And then he, too, waited, in a sort of queer, hushed expectancy, as if
his words must result in some definite action.
"We have medical comforts on board," she said quickly. "We will put
anything we possess at Captain Aylmer's service."
Perinaud nodded again solemnly.
"The dislocated shoulder has been dealt with, Mademoiselle, and the
broken bone set. The orderly, also, has quinine for the fever, which is
high. We might be doing right, perhaps, in taking back any other
remedies which your intelligence can suggest."
His tone was meditative and judicial, and intimated quite distinctly
that this was a side issue and not the objective of his present mission.
He continued to stare at her steadily, without any tinge of offence, but
with a questioning directness which spoke volumes. "I am waiting," it
seemed to say. "I have given you your cue. Speak your part."
She looked from him to the Moor, read the same message in the latter's
air of anticipation, and then spoke, desperately.
"What is it?" she demanded. "You want--something?"
The man looked not exactly embarrassed but disconcerted, surprised. His
eyebrows rose a fraction, he flashed a swiftly inquiring glance at the
Moor. The other nodded.
"The captain's fever and delirium is very great, Mademoiselle," he said
slowly. "We thought--" He hesitated. "The captain, in his wanderings,
used your name frequently."
She understood in a moment. Aylmer, in his fevered unconsciousness,
had--what had he done? Placed himself, and her, in a false position?
These stolid, unimaginative men, at any rate, regarded her as his
fiancee! She was not eager, vehement, to rush to her lover's side! No
wonder they showed astonishment.
She stood silent, perturbed, at a loss. And the two impassive faces
watched her. And again a tiny spasm of fear throbbed through her. Fate
was fighting for this man, it seemed. Helpless, unconscious, cast away
in this rat-hole in the wilderness, his plight worked for him where his
own powers could not. His very helplessness appealed to her. Could she
refuse the duty which was being plainly forced upon her by the mute
message of those four watching eyes? Her imagination began to work. She
saw a gloomy pit, a white face wasted with fever, heard a voice which,
unconsciously, perhaps, but still appealingly, called upon her name. And
this was the debonair soldier who had ridden out three days before to
do--what? Her bidding, no less. A flush rose to her brow.
"I have not a nurse's training," she assured Perinaud quietly, "but I
will come with you, if you will wait."
The sergeant saluted.
"At Mademoiselle's service," he said placidly, and then turned towards
his colleague and sighed, a deep suspiration eloquent of relief.
At the door of the saloon she hesitated. She could see her father at his
desk, bent over his papers, writing methodically. A sudden irritated
sense of shyness fell upon her. Surely he, too, could not misunderstand.
He looked round at her entrance. Without preamble she repeated the
sergeant's report, speaking in level, matter of fact tones. She
announced her decision to return with Perinaud and his escort.
Her father's first comment was no more than his usual deferential little
nod. But there was a slightly strained silence between them as she
finished speaking--a silence which gave him time for reflection.
"You think your presence necessary, likely to benefit him?" he said
questioningly.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"He has been wounded in our service," she said. "These men seem to
expect much of my nursing--I who have never nursed. I hardly see a way
to refuse graciously."
Again her father made his little obeisance of assent.
"I could charge myself with an explanation," he said gravely. "There is
no reason for you to go against your wishes. I fear there is little
prospect of our being of real help."
Then a sudden throb of protest surged up in her. The vision of the dark
cellar and of the fevered lips which called constantly upon her name
became vivid, more vivid than before. To her own amazement she realized
that she wanted to go, that the thought of those two horsemen riding out
into the wild with their message of repulse had become abhorrent to her.
She felt suddenly pitying, protective. The feminine, indeed, the
maternal, instinct gripped her.
The blood rose to her cheeks.
"I should prefer to go," she said quietly.
Van Arlen made a little gesture of finality.
"The sooner, then, the better," he said, and moved briskly towards his
own cabin, summoning the steward to his councils as he went.
The dusk was falling over them with grateful coolness as, eight hours
later, they rode over the brink of the gorge and saw below them the
black spectral shape of camel's-hair tents and the white dwellings of
the _duar_. A lantern newly lit twinkled a welcome. A stallion neighed a
greeting from his pickets as he heard the sound of advancing hoofs, and
a couple of men in white uniform came to the door of a white-domed hovel
and stood awaiting them.
One, a dapper, black-moustached little man with the Geneva Cross upon
his sleeve, hastened to help Miss Van Arlen to alight.
"Monsieur sleeps, Mademoiselle," he informed her, as she reached the
ground. "It is a matter of temperatures--and the subsequent weakness.
Mademoiselle may have good hope that matters will yet go well."
His smile was reassuring and, in spite of his obvious youth, almost
paternal. At the tent door he turned and laid his finger upon his lips.
There must be no feminine want of self-restraint, he implied. The sight
of one dear to her in his hour of helplessness must not leave her
unstrung. She must be brave.
She followed with her father into the shadows within.
He lay with his arms outflung. A light coverlet was over him, but the
damp of perspiration gleamed upon his forehead and neck. He moved
restlessly, breathing with a panting sound.
"We poise much on Monsieur's recognition of Mademoiselle when he wakes,"
explained the orderly, and offered a smirk of intelligent sympathy to
Mademoiselle's father.
She looked down, and a strange sense of unreality in the situation
seized her. The white, fever-stricken face on the pillow seemed a
spectre--a caricature of something familiar. A queer sense of anger, as
if some well-liked possession had been meddled with and defaced by
outsiders, rose in her heart. An instinct which she could not explain
set her kneeling beside the pallet bed, her eyes fixed on its occupant.
Wearily, drowsily, Aylmer opened his eyes.
And then his smile dawned, slowly, incredulously, till the glory of
assurance had become convincing. He pronounced her name.
In the background, emotional thrills travelled across the orderly's
foolishly sentimental countenance. He took mental notes of a situation
which bulked largely and enticingly in a letter to an apple-cheeked
damsel in far-away Provence a few days later. "Such are the rewards of
the soldier, my soul," he explained. "Love? Its cords are strong to drag
its devotees even across this waste wilderness of Africa!" Wherein he
did one of the most fertile lands upon the habitable globe a vile
injustice. But your true lover is invariably a poet and girdled with
merely a poet's limitations, while the apple-cheeked demoiselle's
romantic sensibilities were quickened to the point of tears.
Mr. Van Arlen moved forward to his daughter's side with a suddenly
instinctive motion. And she understood it. The embarrassment of the
situation had at once become plain to him; his desire was to clear it,
he was framing words--courteous, no doubt, but without any trace of
sentiment--to assist her in this. He would do it admirably; his tact was
beyond question.
And she?
Again she felt a sudden thrill of protest. No, how could they deal
coldly with this man, now? It would be less than womanly--would it even
be common fair play? He was down. Surely till he was up again, the
indomitable soldier she knew and feared, honor forbade their striking
even at his self-assurance.
Her hand was laid upon her father's arm, pressing it in gentle
remonstrance. Then she leaned towards the bed.
"We have come to thank you," she said quietly. "You have suffered much
for us, too much."
His smile was fading while she spoke.
"I--I failed," he muttered. "I had my hands upon him, and failed."
"Ah, but you mustn't think us unjust, always," she answered. "What you
intended--that is what we look at. You have worked for us ceaselessly.
And now you suffer for us. You must accept our gratitude for that."
He shook his head slowly, and his gaze wandered past her to Van Arlen's
face.
"It is a check," he said slowly, "but only a check. He is not going to
win." His eyes grew suddenly clear and his lips grim. "I shall follow
him to the end," he said.
The orderly moved forward and rearranged the coverlet. He looked
significantly at a flush which had risen to Aylmer's cheek.
"It is better that Monsieur should not excite himself," he explained
amiably. "Mademoiselle is here; matters are going well. Monsieur will
convalesce all the quicker if he avoids emotion."
Aylmer pushed at the rearranged coverlet with a gesture of irritation.
He drew himself into a sitting posture.
"Don't think that I have flung up the sponge!" he cried. "Before, before
this weakness came over me I arranged for the future. Daoud has seen to
that; he has put matters in train. Landon will be watched--if necessary,
followed. And when I am up again--" he smiled savagely--"when I take the
trail for the second time, he will pay in full, as I promised he
should."
And his voice rang firm as he caught sight of the Moor silhouetted
against the evening light at the tent door.
"That is so?" he demanded. "You have seen to this among your friends?"
Daoud came forward a couple of respectful paces.
"Be assured, Sidi," he said, "that this man will not move a yard but I
shall have due knowledge of it, in time. He cannot leave North Africa,
and I be ignorant of it. Our hands may lag, but they will grip him at
the last."
Aylmer gave a little sigh of satisfaction and lay back. And his eyes
rose to Van Arlen's half appealingly, half defiantly.
"You see?" he said. "At any rate, I am doing--my best."
The other bowed, but not his automatic, courteous little bow with which
he punctuated his everyday conversation. There was a moisture in his
eyes. He leaned forward and took the hand which moved restlessly across
the coverlet.
"If I had had a son," he said, "he could have done no more. Take my
thanks, Captain Aylmer, for all that you are and have been; take them in
full."
Aylmer gave a little nod of content.
"I'll take them," he smiled, "for what I have been to you, and that is
less than nothing. But for what I am going to be--I'll earn them for
that, earn them!"