The Pursuit Part 28

"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 b.u.t.ter."

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 a.s.sociates 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 s.p.a.ce of half a dozen years," he said quietly. "And now, traitor, and, I suppose, a.s.sa.s.sin. 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 G.o.d!

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 circ.u.mstances 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.

"d.a.m.n 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 G.o.d, 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 circ.u.mstantial 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 pa.s.sing 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."