FATE STAYS HER HAND
Rescue, liberty, and, not least, triumph over Landon! These were all
possibilities, even probabilities, clear to Claire Van Arlen's
intelligence as she bent over Aylmer--clear, but undefined. Yet the one
outstanding, engrossing thought was that her champion had fallen in the
moment of victory. The blood was flowing from a deep cut on his
forehead; he was unconscious; the color had ebbed from his very lips. An
agony of apprehension seized upon her. He was dead! He was dead!
And then--the pulse of that relief will be quick in her to her dying
day--his eyes opened, he stirred. He did more than stir; he made efforts
to rise.
She held him masterfully; her voice was stern in her command to him to
lie still. And he looked up at her with an incredulous glance in which
humor had its part. He smiled--a puzzled smile. Suddenly remembrance
came back to him and his bewilderment became anxiety.
"The gunboat?" he asked hoarsely. "They saw me, they were slowing down!"
She nodded silently as she looked about her. They had floated within the
shadow cast by the towering bulk of the island nearest them. The last
red rim of the sun's disc had passed below the horizon. The dusk was
gathering. A mile away the gunboat was turning ponderously.
Rapidly she told him what she saw and he nodded a satisfied assent.
"They're done, now," he whispered triumphantly. "We have them in a cleft
stick!"
But Fate--listening Fate--shook her head.
It was Muhammed who had taken command of the situation, Muhammed who
roared his orders to hoist again the half-lowered sail, to let drift the
dingy from the stern, to stand by the halliards for a tack. He leaped
upon the tiller and flung the boat's prow round to point directly for
the land.
The freshening breeze from the northwest swelled out the great sail as
the panting sailors swung the yard aslant the mast. The water sang and
bubbled from the prow. The _Santa Margarita_ leaped landwards like a
living thing, straight for the cliffs of shadowing stone.
Captain Luigi, completely unnerved by the sudden crisis to which events
had soared, wailed protests without attempting interference.
"I call you to witness that I said he had the evil eye!" he cried. "I
call you to witness! Capture or destruction--there are no two ways to
it!"
"There is One God and one road to safety for a brave man," answered
Muhammed, as he leaned his strength upon the helm. "They call it
courage. Run out the French flag, _amigo_! They dare not fire on that,
here, in debatable waters, for all their claim to these islands as
within the grip of Spain."
A sudden pang of doubt shook Claire. The gunboat was completing its
turning movement--slowly--ah, how slowly! And yet? How could the
felucca, with no more than a fresh breeze to rely on, hope to evade
that greyhound of the seas? A spout of gray smoke burst from the gray
painted sides; the sound of a cannon shot echoed down to them among the
crags.
Muhammed laughed.
"Blank cartridge," he said derisively. "Within five minutes their faces
will be as blank. Sons of dirt, I spit upon you!"
The girl's apprehension grew. Confidence rang in the Moor's voice. He
smiled as one who had already triumphed. And still the felucca drove
shorewards, relentlessly towards the bare face of stone.
But the torpedo boat was gaining speed. The white lift of the foam was
veiling her bows; she ripped through the waters as a blade rips through
calico, directly, cleanly, tossing aside the waves. Another few
minutes--seven--six--perhaps less--and she must be alongside. And the
island cliff seemed to overhang them now; the great sail flapped as the
breeze beat back from the sheer rock against its breadth.
A second time Muhammed roared his orders. The sailors shifted the huge
spar around the mast, swinging it as on a pivot. The _Santa Margarita_
came about, dancingly.
The rush and boil of breaking foam on the seaward bow caught Claire's
ear. She glanced over the taffrail.
A comber was breaking on a great tooth of black rock within half a
cable's length of the boat. Not far ahead she saw the white after-spume
of another--and beyond that a third--a fourth--countless ones. They were
within a very labyrinth of reefs. And Muhammed, swerving the tiller
delicately from side to side, steered unshaken, his eyes piercing into
the swiftly coming gloom, the smile of victory growing round his lips.
She understood, and before she turned her eyes astern knew hope was
lost. The torpedo boat was slackening speed; the cream of her wake began
to slide past her sides and swirl round her bow as she slowed, went
astern, halted on the lips of danger, and then reluctantly turned.
A yell went up from the felucca as the crew saw themselves saved--a yell
of defiance.
Again the gray jet of smoke spurted from the gray port, and this time
the background of purple dusk showed the red tongue of the flame. The
sound of the report reached them, but not so swiftly as another sound--a
nerve-rending menace which shrieked in their very ears, as it seemed,
and passed, to thunder crashingly against the forehead of the crag. And
again Muhammed laughed and showed his white teeth, and roared to his
fellows to swing the yard-arm about as he spun the boat between two
waiting jaws of rock and sent her bounding out into the open before the
lash of the favoring breeze. And night fell over them--for Claire Van
Arlen the hopeless night of despair.
She looked up to find Miller standing beside her, looking down at
Aylmer's face with sombre, inquiring eyes. And she realized for the
first time that in that face the eyes were closed again, the lips
bloodless, the cheeks sunken. She gave an exclamation; she bent and
stanched the blood which still flowed from the wounded temple.
Miller picked up a bucket, seized a rope, attached it to the handle, and
slung it overboard. He placed it, brimmed with water, at her feet. She
looked up again, eyed him silently and without thanks, dipped her
handkerchief in the water and laved Aylmer's face. And Miller himself
remained silent, as if he would force the first comment from her, as if
he probed for information by mere inertness. Had he been heard? She
guessed that he was asking himself--and by force of silence, her--this
question.
A sudden instinct not to betray herself gripped her. Aylmer? Was not he
an example of a like reticence? He had not revealed the fact that his
hands were free till circumstances had revealed it, with a vengeance.
She would follow this example and so tell nothing. She pillowed Aylmer's
head gently upon a coil of rope and stood up.
"The hope of rescue is gone then?" she said quietly. "There is no chance
of their rounding the island, and encountering us later?"
He shrugged his shoulders doubtfully.
"They seldom carry search-lights--craft of that size, in the Spanish
navy, at any rate. No, Muhammed's seamanship has taken the trick this
time. Spanish captains do not waste coal lavishly, and what, after all,
have they to go on. Merely the words 'Help! Prisoners!' It might easily
have been the vagary of some half-drunken sponge-fisher."
She looked at him keenly.
"That was what he signalled?" she said. "You understood that?"
"I know the international code," he said simply. He looked down at
Aylmer again. "His escapade has not improved our position," he added.
"When Landon comes to himself--"
"He is not seriously wounded, then?" she cried in quick disappointment.
"I had hoped--I had prayed--"
"What?" he asked, as she hesitated.
"That he had been killed," she answered slowly. "Is there any escape
from the net of villainy in which he has us all entrapped?"
He looked at her silently, and the dawn of a hard smile glimmered about
his lips. He pointed aft.
"Will you come and look?" he said. "Perhaps I have undervalued your
prayers. I am no surgeon, but I would wager a larger sum on his reviving
than I would on the recovery of--this."
He touched Aylmer with the point of his foot. There was no ungentleness
in the action, but it seemed instinctive--the gesture of an autocrat or
of a dictator, seeing all men under his feet.
She gave a gesture of assent and followed him into the gloom cast by the
sail upon the stern. Landon lay within a foot of where he had fallen,
his head pillowed upon a tarpaulin. Muhammed had relinquished the tiller
to Captain Luigi and was dropping _aguardiente_ between the set lips and
the color was stealing slowly back into the cheeks which had been as
pale as Aylmer's own. Landon's eyes opened as Claire reached and stood
beside him.
They met hers at first without recognition. Then a gleam of feeling
flashed in them--a gleam which grew in fierceness as he gazed.
"I remember!" he muttered. He made a feeble effort to rise, which
Muhammed prevented by the steady pressure of a hand. "By the Lord, he
shall pay for it--and you!"
And then, meeting that glance, and stricken by the revulsion from the
hope which the events of the last few minutes had engendered, Claire
surrendered to a sense of despair. What could the future hold for her
except--the worst? As far as she was concerned, the deal with fate was
finished and she had lost finally. But even despair could not crush the
maternal, protective instinct which had sprung into being in the silo of
El Dibh, which had grown into full flower through the last dark hours in
the lazaret. She spoke quickly, on the spur of the moment.
"Him you cannot hurt," she answered. "He is escaping you; he is dying."
Landon struggled under Muhammed's restraining hand.
"Is he?" he cried, looking at Miller. "Is he? He's not going before I
get my hands on him! For God's sake, man, say he isn't! Say it isn't
true!"
Miller shrugged his shoulders apathetically.
"We'll do all we can," he temporized.
Landon gnashed his teeth and burst into hysterical weeping.
"Ah, but I wanted to have my will of him!" he cried. "It's he and all
the thousands like him that have put me here! The cursed hypocrites! I
slipped; I went against their code, and they jostled each other to
trample me when I was down! And I?" He shook his fist weakly into the
night. "I? I was no worse than the best of them. I was only myself--the
natural man--and they flung me out! And I could have repaid every stab,
every kick, on him--on him!"
He writhed and then suddenly steadied himself. Again his eyes focussed
evilly upon Claire.
"Go to him!" he ordered. "Go to him and do your utmost for him! Bring
him round and I'll be light with you; I'll save you--the worst of it.
Let him slip through your fingers, and by every devil in Hell I'll make
you pay double, double, and double that!"
She turned from him silently and in turning made a little stagger.
Miller's hand slipped under her elbow; for an instant she found that he
was supporting her. She stirred away from him in uncontrollable disgust.
A moment later she had pulled herself together; she murmured a
disjointed sentence of thanks, and moved away towards the scuppers where
Aylmer still lay motionless, realizing, as she reached it, that the gray
man was still at her side. He was looking at her keenly, but with an
impassive gaze which told her nothing.
She bent her face to the white lips. Faintly, but still distinct, she
felt the breath pass from them. She rose with a little gesture of
appeal.
"You must help me," she said. "We must get him below."
For a moment he hesitated. Then he passed his arms behind the other's
shoulders and lifted him. She bent and took his knees. Staggering again
at first, but with growing steadiness, she helped to half carry, half
drag him to the companion, into the cabin, to lay him, at last, on the
floor of the lazaret.
She drew off her jacket and arranged it under his head.
She rose and looked at Miller.
"Now, if they will give me food and water, I will do what I can," she
said simply. "Quiet is his best chance, absolute quiet."
He gave a little bow of assent.
"We must hope for the best," he answered. "You must rely on me all you
can; come into Landon's notice as little as possible. I will use my
influences, such as they are, for the best."
The hot throb of repulsion--of hate, even--throbbed up in her, knowing,
as she knew, that he was false to her, but she kept her face unmoved.
She nodded.
"Yes," she answered quietly, "unless--you think my duty is to let
him--die?"
His imperturbable face lost its calm for a moment. He was genuinely
startled.
"But no!" he cried quickly. "Things are not as bad as that! The threats
he used? Those were the results of shock, of delirium. I would prevent
that--I."
She looked at him very steadily.
"Yes?" she said. "You--a prisoner, like myself. How?"
He shrugged his shoulders vaguely.
"He is open to reason," he said. "He could not afford it; I could make
that plain to him, I have every assurance that I could."
He was looking at her searchingly--frowning, showing dissatisfaction
with himself for his slip. She was content to let it pass.
"Thank you," she answered. "You give me hope," and truly enough a wild,
incredulous hope had just arisen in her heart, for her gaze had been
still on Aylmer's pallid face at her feet.
The gray man still hesitated and then, with the air of one who has
probed an enigma the solution of which still escaped him, turned and
passed into the cabin. She heard his footsteps echo along the deck over
her head.
Aylmer's eyes opened, and then one of them closed again, in a wink!
She laid her finger warningly upon her lips. She bent till her lips
touched his ear.
"I knew it--I knew it!" she breathed joyfully. "Ah, but you nearly
spoilt it all. You smiled--I saw the beginning of it--when he made his
slip, and he might have seen it, too!"
He smiled again.
"The renegade!" he whispered. "I knew it before this last hour; I saw it
in his face when Landon came here, before. They have some understanding,
those two. And it was he who betrayed me--with his suggestion about the
halliards. I heard him, before they let them go!"
"And I!" she answered. "He is against us; we are alone, against them
all!"
"Where does his profit come in?" he asked, wonderingly. "What arguments
has Landon used; how can a man like him be the gainer?"
She shook her head.
"One has met him--in Gibraltar--in society," she said. "But do we know
anything of him; does any one know?"
He was silent for a moment.
"No," he said, at last. "No one knows. I have heard it spoken of, his
unknowableness, but no one has supplied a key to the mystery. I think--I
think if we win out of this I must set machinery to work in
Gibraltar--to find out."
"If!" she repeated sadly. "If!"
His lips set firmly.
"Not if," he answered resolutely. "When! Do you believe that men like
Landon win! You, yourself? Didn't you tell him that he would have to
pay, eventually. I'm going to present the bill--I. I know it; I have it
as a conviction!"
Her eyes glowed down at him. The dead roots of hope began to sprout in
her heart. The down-hearted, the _faineant_? Has any natural woman a use
for such an one? No! Nature made you the leader, they cry to the male.
For God's sake, behave as one!
She offered no protest, no comment. She did not question his faith; her
matter-of-factness only asked for detail.
"Meanwhile?" she questioned. "Meanwhile?"
He made a little grimace.
"It is a gray prospect," he admitted. "I lie here, unconscious. I lie
physically--and by implication--morally. I feign myself as one on the
lip of extinction. I wait!"
She felt vaguely disappointed.
"You wait--till when?" she asked.
He smiled.
"Till a very old friend comes by," he answered. "She has seldom failed
me, and then my own laggardness was at fault. They call her
Opportunity."