The Pursuit Part 44

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 h.e.l.l 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 impa.s.sive gaze which told her nothing.

She bent her face to the white lips. Faintly, but still distinct, she felt the breath pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sent.

"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 a.s.surance that I could."

He was looking at her searchingly--frowning, showing dissatisfaction with himself for his slip. She was content to let it pa.s.s.

"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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d'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."