The Pursuit Part 40

But that you become a person tolerated in ordinary English society is essential."

"I am, in fact, to work laboriously for what is already in my grasp. You underrate my business capacity, my dear sir, you really do."

The gray shoulders were shrugged.

"I might possibly allow a payment of a thousand--let us say--on account.

That would suffice to establish you in a decent and plausible position.

The work, as you call it, would not be difficult. I rather fancy you would find it amusing."

"I think you want me badly," said Landon. "I think I must be unique for your purposes."

"Don't a.s.sume that it is your intelligence which my employers wish to buy," said Miller, coolly. "It is your social standing, still something of an a.s.set in your caste-ridden land."

"But I refuse to have my intelligence underrated," protested Landon, gaily. "I hug it; it tells me many things which you may not suspect.

One of them is that there is a lever which will displace your self-confidence. You are a very bad bearer of--physical pain."

Very faint was the pulse of the emotion which throbbed through Miller's eyes as he turned them towards his companion, but distinct enough for Landon to discover and greet with another amiable little laugh.

"It's where blood tells," he said. "I discovered it accidentally; we spoke of what D'Amade's men had to undergo as prisoners at the hands of the Moors, did we not? I mentioned the eyes gouged out, the fettered wounded flung on slow fires, the impaled. You flinched, my dear sir, you flinched badly and--I tried you again. I harked back to like subjects more than once; the result satisfied me. And then I began to dwell upon your complexion. Is that olive tint from Spain, or was there a near forefather in the gorgeous East? Are you of Hindoo blood, my friend--are you?"

Miller's impa.s.sive eyes met his, looked deeply within them, and wandered vaguely towards the empty s.p.a.ces of the sea. Landon chuckled.

"By G.o.d, I wouldn't stop anywhere, with you, you renegade!" he swore with sudden, hot, irrational rancor. "I'd deal with you. Will any one stop me? Ask those men--Mafiaists, every one. Stop me! They'd give me tips; they'd mutilate you as they'd mutilate their own domestic animals, for fun!"

Miller drew back a couple of paces, not with any show of disgust or fear, but with the air of an artist who wishes to regard a finished work from a more distant aspect. And he surveyed Landon keenly.

"So I am being threatened?" he said quietly.

Landon grinned wickedly.

"So you're being threatened," he agreed. "Deliberate the matter; give it your best attention; and all the while remember that there is nothing which will stop me, not a single solitary thing."

"I think you are wrong," said Miller, slowly, and then--the sound of it was bizarre to the last degree between his lips--he whistled a quaint little run, which thrilled and quavered up and down half a dozen bars to end upon a long-drawn note.

There was a queer silence. Landon looked at him with a frown which implied scarcely apprehension, but what is nearly akin to it--bewilderment. For there was no mistaking the intention with which the thing was done. Miller had whistled the tripping little air deliberately.

There was a stirring from below. The two hands appeared, and appeared with a suddenness which left no room for doubt that they had been summoned. The savor of burning spaghetti followed them; the summons had been one exacting instant obedience. They had left the frying-pan upon the fire. Together with their appearance came the sound from the companion of Captain Luigi stumbling to his feet.

"Fling this man overboard!" said Miller, in level, indifferent tones. He pointed to Landon.

Landon gave a shout which brimmed with incredulity as much as fear. His hand flew to his breast pocket fumblingly, but too late. Miller's grip was on his wrist; Miller's thrust flung him into the skipper's waiting arms. As Muhammed relinquished the helm and sprang forward, one of the deck hands ducked, tripped him, and rose between his legs--that deadly Mafiaist trick which never fails of its results. The other had closed in upon Landon as he struggled in the captain's grip. He a.s.sisted to drag him relentlessly towards the gunwale.

Landon yelled again. His eyes glared out of the struggle at Miller in a very fury of amazement. He bellowed oaths, blasphemies, obscenities even, the fruits of instinctive pa.s.sions and automatic to his wrath. And there was something almost devilish in the silence which his two a.s.sailants kept. They panted a little, by stress of effort, but they uttered no other sound. They merely edged their victim nearer and yet nearer to the side, forced him against the gunwale, stooped with concerted action for one last heave, and then--fell away from him with a little obsequious shrug. For Miller's voice had been heard again.

"_Basta_--enough!" he had said, his voice still unraised.

Landon lay where their relinquished efforts had left him, huddled against the gunwale, and staring up at his surroundings with fierce, incredulous eyes. Muhammed was stretched p.r.o.ne beneath his a.s.sailant who, as he tripped him, had deftly caught the Moor's right wrist and twisted it behind his back. He sat on his prisoner now, still holding the other's hand, but carelessly and without open concern, perfectly aware that the slightest movement from his human pedestal would break the delicate bone as pipe-clay breaks--in one clean snap.

"Have I made myself plain?" asked Miller, equably.

Landon used a moment of complete silence to stare round the deck, poising his glance on each of his companions in turn. It rested, at last, on Miller's entirely emotionless countenance.

"Yes--and d.a.m.n you!" said Landon, rising sullenly to his feet.

Miller nodded.

"An amateur cannot break into my particular cla.s.s of business, my dear Landon," he said. "There are pitfalls for him at every turn. Membership of a dozen organizations is necessary, and they are close corporations; even their humbler servants, as you see, find them rigidly exacting."

Landon shrugged his shoulders, produced his cigarette case and match-box, stuck a match in his mouth, and drew the cigarette across the roughened edge of the box. Miller suffered himself to smile.

"Your nerves are not altogether at their best," he allowed, "but there is no need to emphasize the fact. I have no wish to deal harshly with you. In fact, half of the scheme you have just outlined to me has my approval. I shall not interfere with your desire to receive compensation from your father-in-law, but whatever you receive you will regard, if you please, as from me, provided by my efforts and to be accounted for in full! Is that understood?"

Landon shrugged his shoulders again.

"I welcome your a.s.sistance," he said quietly, and put the cigarette to its appointed use.

"But _my_ scheme has, in the final event, to be carried out in all its details," Miller added. "In your bargain with your relations, complete social regeneration and recognition is included."

"But not--the boy?" said Landon, slowly.

"But not the boy," repeated Miller. "The first, I have satisfied myself, cannot be obtained without the surrender of the second. You follow me?"

Landon looked at Muhammed, looked at the deck hand who still sat impa.s.sive on the Moor's shoulders, looked at Luigi, looked, lastly, at Miller.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"We are in your hands--literally," he said, and made an amiable gesture of a.s.sent.

CHAPTER XX

AYLMER CLIMBS--AND FALLS

The door of the lazaret was pulled quietly back. The opening showed Miller, silhouetted as in a frame, a splash of sunshine which flowed down into the outer cabin hanging in a golden halo, as it were, behind his remarkably solid looking head. Coming from the full light into the darkness--for the lamp was already flickering to final extinction--he blinked. And there was something unhuman in his aspect as he stood there, searching the gloom with his impa.s.sive eyes, something not altogether stealthy, but yet something with a tinge of menace in it. So, no doubt, the hovering night-bird comes to a pause above its victim.

His glance first recognized Miss Van Arlen. He demonstrated the fact by a little deferential movement--a bow which seemed to deprecate, or even criticize, the circ.u.mstance of her surroundings. He smiled, but with slightly raised eyebrows, and as his glance travelled on to meet Aylmer's there was a hint of suggestion in it. It was a glance, at any rate, which was responsible for the faint flush which rose to the girl's cheek and for the hardening of Aylmer's lips. For some reason unknown even to himself, the latter's bound arms instinctively moved towards the child, who had nestled against his shoulder and had there fallen asleep.

"A scene which would catch a painter's--or a poet's eye--" said the gray man, meditatively. "We could call it Innocence, could we not?"

Again he looked from one to the other with that questioning, suggestive glance which somehow seemed to deprecate, and yet, at the same time, imply equivocation. Neither answered him, and he made an energetic gesture--one which relegated trivialities to forgetfulness.

"I must be a source of wonder to you; I am to myself!" he cried. "To allow myself to be trapped into such trifling at such a moment! It is the artistic temperament; you must address your amazement to it and your forgiveness to me. I bring good news, relatively."

Claire rose from her seat on the floor.

"Yes?" she said eagerly. "There is a chance of escape, or, perhaps, rescue?"