The Pursuit Part 15

"Mr. Van Arlen," said Aylmer, slowly, "I am not received here as a friend. I prefer, therefore, to give my message standing, as a matter of business."

The gray, furrowed face flushed.

"My dear sir!" protested the old man. "My dear sir!"

"You obviously evade my hand; you do not desire to ask me inside your house?" insisted Aylmer, quietly.

The other raised a hand which shook deprecatingly. But Aylmer forestalled his attempt at speech.

"You do these things, or rather you avoid doing them, without any personal cause of complaint against me, but because my name is what it is?"

Van Arlen's hand fell to his side. The pained remonstrative look faded from his eyes. His lips, which had quivered, grew suddenly set and were firmly pressed together. He seemed to increase in stature.

"Is not my reason good?" he cried sharply, as if some relentlessly pa.s.sionate impulse mastered all restraint.

"No," said Aylmer, quietly, "though I grant your provocation has been ample. Let me tell you this. If there are any men breathing whose loathing of your son-in-law can equal your own, it is those who are tainted with his name. In the name of my kinsmen, a name all reputable till Landon smirched it, I tender you their sympathy and regret."

For a long instant the gray eyes beneath the grayer eyebrows searched Aylmer's face. Doubt, perplexity, and then finally a thrill of obvious relief pa.s.sed across the waxen face. Aylmer's hand was taken; he was gently propelled towards a chair.

"I have suffered much; can I be forgiven?" said the old man wearily.

"Can you make my excuses valid to yourself?"

"They were written, and the shame of our family with them, all too large in the press of two hemispheres," said Aylmer. "G.o.d knows I am not here to-day to bring anything more than such little reparation as is within my power."

"Reparation?" Van Arlen's tone was more than surprised; it was startled.

Aylmer nodded.

"I came to give you information of Landon's whereabouts. He is here in Tangier, Mr. Van Arlen. I came to put you on your guard, and at the same time to offer you my a.s.sistance."

Quickly, accurately, and in as few words as possible he outlined the events of the previous evening. Silently, but with growing anxiety, Mr.

Van Arlen heard him to the end.

He rose, trembling a little, as Aylmer concluded.

"You will excuse me if I leave you to--to give some orders. The one outstanding fact in your story for me is that Landon is here, and that my daughter and the boy are on this expedition. They have their usual attendants, but--but--" He halted, stammering. "He--he may poise his all on one last attempt? He may get together a following which would overpower them?"

Aylmer looked at him debatingly.

"Yes," he allowed. "That is a possibility to be faced though I believe his resources are, or were, meagre. You will take more men and go and meet them?"

The old man made a gesture of apology.

"Yes," he said. "And, if you will pardon my curtness, at once."

"The sooner the better," agreed Aylmer, quietly, "as I hope to be allowed to accompany you?"

Van Arlen gave a little start, one that seemed to imply a doubt or a question. As if he replied to it, Aylmer gave a little nod.

"You must accept me as an ally, my dear sir," he said. "You have seen that I have a pressing need to meet Landon. I should like to do so in your company."

The other still hesitated.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because I would like to make the interview convincing--to you," said Aylmer. "Because I covet your friendship; because I want you and your family to revise their estimate of the name of Aylmer. Because," he paused and deliberated over his words for a moment, "because I want to be received by you at Villa Eulalia, inside."

Again the gray face flushed; again the hand was raised in deprecation.

And then the bell in the porch rang furiously, and continued to ring till the porter emerged frowning from his lodge.

Aylmer heard the sound of blows and his own name repeated in fierce interrogation. He recognized the voice. It was Daoud who was shouting and endeavoring to gain entrance in the face of the porter's emphatic protests.

As Aylmer advanced to the bars, the tumult ceased.

"Sidi! Sidi!" cried the Moor. "Your man left by the Larache road three hours back. A company of ne'er-do-wells have taken a sudden impulse to visit Arzeila, or so they said. He joined himself to them, wearing native dress, and was accepted by them without comment. Surely there is something of strangeness and importance in this. I have run, I have sweated, to let you know!"

Van Arlen gave an exclamation of alarm.

"It is as I thought!" he cried. "The Arzeila road? That is a blind. They can make a cut across towards Spartel at any moment." He shouted towards one of the watching attendants; his voice seemed to gain new force as he issued his orders alertly. He faced Aylmer again. "It is a matter of speed," he exclaimed. "I must hasten--at the gallop."

Aylmer gave him a protesting look.

"Not I! We," he corrected.

For a moment the other still hesitated. Then a smile broke into being in his sombrely weary eyes.

"We, then," he agreed. "Even the gentleman who has sadly impaired the distinction of my porter, if you can guarantee him. We may need all the help we can get. Certainly we! G.o.d send we may be in time!"

CHAPTER VIII

THE FIRST TRICK IS LOST

The cavalcade of hors.e.m.e.n swept along a level plain of beach and from there turned aside to gain the broom-covered slope which led towards the cliff top. The white column of the lighthouse, which had been their guide heretofore, disappeared behind the shoulder of the ascent. It was no more than a couple of miles away. The riders spurred their horses up the steep, Aylmer and Van Arlen leading. The edge of their anxieties grew blunter as they neared their goal. They might be in time to meet and safeguard those they sought before they left the shelter of Spartel.

As they topped the rise and looked across the undulating stretch of green which lay before them, Daoud, riding behind Aylmer, gave a triumphant shout.

"_La bas, alk.u.mdullah!_" he cried fervently. "No harm, thanks to G.o.d.

The lady is even now coming towards us with her party unharmed."

Their eyes followed the direction of his finger. A great sigh of relief broke from Mr. Van Arlen's lips.

A party came slowly towards them, a couple of furlongs distant. Seven or eight were men mounted on barbs, and armed, in spite of prohibitions, with Remington rifles swung across their laps. In front of them, a couple of mules paced doggedly on, carrying two white-clad figures. At their bridles were _djelab_-clothed youths, whose adjurations of their charges were audible even at that distance, so still was the evening air. Two or three dogs chased each other and supposit.i.tious partridges from tuft to tuft.

Van Arlen and Aylmer saw that they were seen, but not recognized. The muleteers halted and cried loudly to the guard. The hors.e.m.e.n looked up, whirled up their rifles with their right hands, and spurred to the front.