The Pursuit Part 29

"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 l.u.s.t 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.

CHAPTER XV

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 sh.o.r.e, 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 cuira.s.ses 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 sh.o.r.e, and had finally recognized Daoud. His companion, a uniformed man, whose long limbs seemed to occupy the whole of the s.p.a.ce 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.