The Pursuit Part 55

His eyes glistened.

"G.o.d sent that thought to you--G.o.d himself!" he cried. "We must have a rod; we must make one!" He turned and re-lit the lantern. He examined the splintered woodwork of the boat with a calculating eye.

Wood was at their service in plenty, but the tools to deal with it were wanting. Neither of them possessed a knife. He searched the pockets of the dead, but had no success. For a moment they stood regarding each other in incredulous despair. Surely Fate, after bracing them with this hope, was not going to torture them by withdrawal? And then Aylmer's eye fell upon the baling slipper.

He lifted it with a gesture of relief; he tore the strip of tin from off it and held it up.

"That is our blade!" he cried. "We have only to pare down splinters till they will pa.s.s through the pipe, and the thing is done."

He picked up a piece of planking as he spoke, worked the metal into the grain till a split began to gape, and then, wrapping a piece of tarpaulin round each end of his impromptu blade, worked it to and fro and downwards. A thin sliver of wood was the result--one about eighteen inches long.

He repeated the operation, slowly and carefully. As each lath was split and pared, he pa.s.sed it to his companion and she spliced the ends with strips of gray cloth. And these? Aylmer took them from the dead body at the end of the cloister. Miller, in death, was helping to repair some of the injuries for which his life was responsible.

They worked methodically, without haste, but with every care. Two hours later they had a twelve-foot staff laid out at their feet. To the top they attached a little flag, also of gray. They divided it into halves, thrust the upper half into the pipe, attached the lower one to it, and then pushed the whole upwards to the full extent of Aylmer's reach.

Claire peered anxiously into the hole. She gave a great cry of relief; her eyes filled with sudden tears.

"The flag is outside!" she cried. "There is no doubt of that; it is a certainty. While it was wrapped round the head of the staff inside the tube, it hid all light from me. And now light has come again--dim, but there still. It slips down between the staff and the sides. The flag is out in the air--the air!"

He nodded.

"All that remains, then, is to keep it moving--to show that human beings are holding its other end. We must work ceaselessly."

He looked round at her as he spoke. Her eyes were bent on him earnestly, meditatively. And there was something in her gaze for which he had no clue.

She spoke, and so supplied it herself.

"I think we shall be rescued now," she said quietly. "I feel a certainty about it, an instinct. Yes, I think we have defeated Fate. We shall come back into life again, you and I."

He understood. Through the wild days in the boat and on the island, Fate had given no chance for either of them to probe the future. Hope had had so tiny a place in their thoughts--hopelessness had so immeasurably absorbed them all. And now? Was she allowing herself to dwell on life as it would affect them untouched by Fate, and free? Was she mentally rearranging her att.i.tude to him?

Fate would supply her own answer. He turned and doggedly began to work the flagstaff up and down.

A tension of silence was over them as they waited. The hours went by.

With a little gesture she came, took the pole from his hand, and bade him rest. He surrendered it quietly, spent ten minutes in ma.s.saging his stiffened muscles, and then took it again. It was queer, this sudden reticence which had arisen between them. It was as if while Fate delayed to speak, all other words were futile. And her answer might come at any moment or--G.o.d help them--not at all.

The hours lengthened. The thin rays which still filtered through the half-closed pipe grew dim and at last died altogether. Night had come.

Aylmer turned with a little shrug, placed a plank beneath the b.u.t.t of the staff to keep it in position, and came back to the boat.

"There is no need to fatigue ourselves through the darkness," he said.

"Till daylight shows our flag again, we had better rest, to be strong for to-morrow. Shall we sleep?"

She looked at him curiously, and then answered with a little nod.

"Sleep," she agreed. "You are tired, tired. And wake strong; your strength--G.o.d knows--has been tried enough."

There was something restrained in her voice; something which again escaped his comprehension, but his fatigue was overmastering. He stretched himself upon a couple of flags. Sleep overcame him instantly.

Was it a moment later that he awoke in answer to her cry? So he believed, but as a matter of fact midnight was long past. She had lit a match; she was holding it to the wick of the lantern.

Her eyes were wide and bright with excitement. She pointed towards the pipe.

"I could not rest!" she cried. "No, I could not sleep and know that rescue might be pa.s.sing by. I have worked at the staff ceaselessly and now! Now it is gone!"

He sprang towards her.

"Gone!" he repeated. "Gone!"

"They are there--above us--men--men who know we are here. They pulled it up, out of my hands!" She made a gesture which pled for silence.

"Listen!" she cried. "Listen!"

A tinkling sound came from the pipe and then a tiny bottle sank into view, dangling from a string. He seized it. It was warm.

"Soup!" he cried. "Food! That is their first thought for us! And I had forgotten that I was starving. I had forgotten it absolutely!"

He held it to her lips. She put out her hand in protest, but his gesture was inexorable. She gave a queer little laugh, shrugged her shoulders, and drank. He took the half she left him and drank in his turn. He tied the bottle again to the string and shook it. It disappeared and was lowered again, this time with wine. And half a dozen little rolls dropped at their feet. They ate, they waked the child and fed him, they sat, and from above the sound of pick and mattock in the hands of men who toiled furiously thundered down to them. They speculated how and whence the first sight of rescue would appear. They laughed in high, excited tones. Expectancy had them in its grip to the exclusion of all other emotions.

And then, with a sudden roar and crash, an avalanche of rubble poured into the hole which they had dug into the ma.s.s of debris. And with it came a man in sailor uniform who mixed anathema and congratulation in excited but fluent French. He wept, he fell upon Aylmer's neck and embraced him, he kissed the child and Claire's hand. Slowly they toiled at his heels, helped by a dangling rope, out into the red glare of a dozen torches which were held by seamen of the French Marine.

And one of the two officers who directed them called upon the name of G.o.d and all His saints to emphasize his amazement.

It was Rattier who held and shook their hands a hundred times. Rattier, incoherent, swearing, every vestige of his taciturnity ravished from him by emotion, plying them with a thousand questions, raining tears upon little John Aylmer's wondering face.

They reached the market square. They looked upon the ruin which covered the devastated earth in the wan light of the slowly coming dawn.

Five miles away, swinging at her mooring opposite the ruined port of Messina was a white-hulled boat--a boat which they looked at with wistfully incredulous eyes. They whispered her name.

"_The Morning Star?_" they wondered. "_The Morning Star?_"

"What else?" cried the commandant, exultantly. "That Spanish torpedo boat--did you think nothing was to be heard from her? You disappeared.

Two days later comes the news from Malaga of a felucca, going east with prisoners on board. Would that not induce your father, Mademoiselle, to put two and two together? The Melilla port authorities supplied the name of that felucca and her destination--Sicily. He arrived two days back. I have seen him, we spoke together, and then G.o.d knows all our energies and thoughts have been with these poor wretches ash.o.r.e. Down in Messina your own countrymen and the Russians are doing marvels. The _Diomede_ was the only French ship, alas, in harbor, but we have others coming from Tunis, from Algiers, from Ma.r.s.eilles. We need every worker we can get. What you have suffered thousands are suffering still."

Aylmer gave a quick, decided little nod. He looked at Claire.

"You will let one of these sailors see you on board?" he said. "Paul will spare one to escort you."

She looked at him, startled, a little bewildered, even.

"And you?" she asked. "And you?"

He made a gesture towards the chaos which covered sh.o.r.e and hill.

"Can I leave the work which calls me, knowing what I know?" he asked.

"Paul has put my duty into words. What I have suffered, others are suffering yet. Would you think well of me, if I left it?"

She looked at him with a smile that told of appreciation, approval, of something (or was hope a lying gla.s.s?) more than these.

"No!" she said quietly. "No!" She hesitated a moment.