The Pursuit
Page 26
CHAPTER XXVI
DAWN COMES
Out of the darkness of insensibility consciousness came slowly intobeing in Aylmer's brain, but memory lagged to join it. He wasbound--that he realized, and his teeth were immovable upon a gag. Thedarkness was absolute and so, for the first few minutes through whichhis senses woke, was the silence. He could feel rough slabs of woodwhich cased his body in. He shifted uneasily and beat his temple upon aplank. The sweat of terror broke out upon his brow. He was buried alive!God help him! The worst that could happen to a living soul was hissentence from the lips of Fate!
Something whimpered in the darkness; something stirred beside his feet.
In a flash came remembrance. The awful moment of disaster through whichhe had been carried, blind, speechless, and bound, became a picture inhis brain--a picture the more vivid in that actuality had been hiddenfrom him and imagination had supplied details beyond the compass of thereal. He stirred afresh, he writhed, his bound wrists beat out upon theair.
The whimpers ceased and words followed--words in a child's voice shakenby fear. A trembling hand found Aylmer's sleeve, crept up it to hischeek, and halted there in miserable hesitation.
"It's me--it's me!" whispered the voice. "Can't you speak? Oh, can't youspeak to me?"
And then the wandering fingers found the linen band which bound the gaginto place and was fastened behind Aylmer's head.
"Is that why?" said the child in eager discovery. "Is _that_ why?"
The band cut into Aylmer's cheek as the knot was twitched with all theawkwardness of haste, but a moment later the pressure ceased. He spatthe gag from between his teeth.
"Little John!" he cried. "Little John! Are you hurt? are you able tostand?"
The boy clutched him with a sort of desperation of relief.
"Oh, you _can_ speak--you _can_ speak!" he shouted joyously. "My headaches and my shoulder doesn't move right, but I can stand. I can reachnothing above my head--or right--or left."
There was a creaking of timber as he moved, stretching his hands, as wasevident, into the black emptiness about the boat. Aylmer's bound wristswere lifted to reach him.
"Pick at them--as you did before, little John," he said. "Loose me, sothat we can search the darkness together."
The child's breath came in zealous pants as he tugged and pulled, butthe knots were tightly lashed and sodden with the sea. And his haste wasa handicap; he plucked and twisted ineffectually. And finally heoverbalanced himself and slipped.
He gave a cry of pain.
"I'm hurted--I'm bleeding!" he sobbed. "I fell against something thatcut!"
Aylmer's heart stood still. If the fall had injured the child severely,if it had disabled him, if he were to lose consciousness--was thishorror of helplessness to be added to those which already had them intheir grip? He stretched out his arms towards the sound of the sobbing,and this, as he did so, suddenly ceased.
Panic gripped him, only to be fought down. Slowly, and with painfuleffort, he twisted himself round in the darkness till his bound wristsfound as their goal the child's cap which still covered his untidy maneof curls. And these were wet and sticky.
The reason was not far to seek. The baling slipper lay below littleJohn's temple--the baling slipper mended with a rough strip of tin. Andthis had cut through cap and curls, down to the bone. It had finishedwhat terror had begun. The boy had fainted.
Aylmer's first impulse was to use the whole of his tethered strength inbringing consciousness back to the child--to what was, he considered,his only chance of freedom. A moment later chance pointed a quickerroad. His knuckles met and were scarred by the frayed edge of the tin.He gave an exclamation of impatience at his own dulness. What would cuthim would cut his bonds. Crouching down he managed to grip the slipperbetween his knees and steady it there. And then he rasped his lashingsupon its edge.
A minute sufficed, or even less. The cord frayed, gave strand by strand,and broke apart with a twang. He gasped with relief and fell to workupon his ankles. As these bonds loosened and fell away in their turn, hestood up, rising slowly and stretching his hands above his head. Hetouched nothing.
He sighed not only with relief, this time, but with a faint tinge ofhope. And then he bent, felt his way past the still motionless child,and touched, by chance's guidance, Claire Van Arlen's hair. And he gaveanother exclamation of self-encouragement. For her cheek was warm.
He plucked the gag from her lips; his hands were already at her wristsas she uttered his name. He thrilled to the anxiety in her voice.
"You?" she asked anxiously. "You? You were uninjured. I heard you speakand--and, it seemed, to me that you--_flagged_--that you--were not you!"
"Yes," he answered quietly. "I had not found you then. I did not know--Ido not know it yet--how far you yourself were unhurt."
His fingers were unlashing her feet now. He heard her stir into asitting posture and, as her feet were freed, felt her rise to her knees.Instinct bade him thrust out a hand as she did so, and she rocked upagainst it. Her energy had been more than her strength; she leanedagainst him panting.
For a full minute he held her, feeling her pulses throb against his,fanned by her breath that panted past his cheek, one hand warm withinhis own, one upon his shoulder. And through the darkness he sent out hisappeal to Fate. If the grim goddess had no farther favors in her storefor him, let her hand close upon him there. Might there be no more wearystruggles; might the end find him and the girl whose hand clung to hisin this intimate protection at once. Let death come in that moment, andhe would ask no more.
Fate gave no answer and the moment passed.
She gave a little sob and, still holding him, staggered to her feet.
"It is the stiffness, and the long hours bound. And theanxiety--for--for you!" she murmured. "I am unhurt, indeed I am unhurt.I have scarcely so much as a bruise upon me. And my chatelaine? That isstill at my waist. I have--have matches, if the sea water has sparedthem!"
Light! Could they pierce this wall of darkness; could they actually hopeto see how and where they were caged? He scarcely dared to breathe as heheard her silver chain of trinkets tinkle, and heard the rasp of thematch-head on the box. The red spark sputtered against the blackness andthen flared into yellow being as the wax took flame. They looked aboutthem with more than curiosity. With awe.
High above their head was an arch of masonry, massively mortised,curving from a wall to a row of squat, solid pillars; and these lastflanked a pile of heaped rubble and stone. They were in a passage sometwenty feet long, closed at each end as the unwalled side was closed bythe wreck of the house above. It was a cloister. And the open courtyardwhich it had rimmed was now a stupendous rubbish heap, massed high abovetheir heads with ruin.
They looked down. They still stood in the boat, and at Aylmer's feet thechild was huddled in unconsciousness, the blood still welling slowlyfrom the cut on his brow. Beyond them something indefinite andunrecognizable lay in a dark heap upon the flags.
Aylmer stepped forward and bent over it.
It was the body of a man, clothed in the dark, red-striped uniform ofthe Carbineers. His lips were grim and set. His right hand stillclutched the breach of a rifle. And at his belt was a lantern--the glassbroken, but the tin intact. Aylmer's hands trembled as they fell uponthis prize.
He wheeled back to his companion and touched the flame against the wick.There was a moment's suspense, and then they sighed in chorus. For theoil was unspilt. For a time, at least, darkness was not to be among theterrors which menaced them.
Claire knelt and pulled the child upon her knee. She stanched the blood;she dropped her handkerchief into the little pool of sea water which wasfast draining through the wrenched seams of the boat, and gently lavedthe unconscious face. Little John stirred drowsily, opened his eyesreluctantly, and looked up with wonder into her face.
He put his hand up weakly to his temple.
"It's--it's queer--and--and hurty," he whispered. "Muhammed? He wouldmake it well."
Sh
e pulled him to her tenderly.
"Does it hurt badly?" she asked. "Muhammed hasn't come to us--yet."
He looked wonderingly around him.
"The house--opened--and let us right in," he mused. "We came up on thesea--right up--as fast as a train. And Dad? Dad was with us then."
She looked up questioningly at Aylmer. And he had gathered up the deadCarbineer's cloak and was arranging it against the stern. He made amotion towards it.
"Sleep is all the medicine we can give him," he advised. "Let him rest.Meanwhile we must use the light while we have it."
She nodded quickly and laid the child gently down. He smiled at herdrowsily again, whispered a half-distinguishable appeal to be told whenthe Moor "came back," and then nature's healing hand closed over hiseyes. He slept--the deep, dead sleep of exhaustion.
Aylmer raised the lamp. Together they paced the length of their prison.
The gray flags were bare except where the Carbineer's body lay. With alittle gesture of compassion, Aylmer straightened the stiffening limbs,and covered the stern, unfaltering face with the dead man'shandkerchief. And then they passed on, to confront the hill of rubblewhich closed the cloister's end. And here they halted, as they lookeddown.
Claire shuddered.
A gray sleeve emerged from the stones and an open hand seemed to appealfor the help which came all too late. Aylmer dragged fiercely at theruined wall. A block or two became unseated. These shouldered out othersto rumble at their feet.
A gray-clad body became exposed. They looked at it, instinct preparingthem to recognize what they saw. Battered and disfigured though it was,they knew it for Miller's face.
For a moment they kept silence, looking at it fixedly. The eyes wereopen, but death had wiped out from them the imperturbability which theyhad held through life. Fear had gripped the gray man at the last. Horrorhad been with him--even panic.
Aylmer leaned down and covered the fear-haunted eyes.
"He has gone, and taken his mystery with him," he said. "What his lifewas we shall never ascertain. What led him to betray us? That is beyondour learning. It may have been no more than fear and the desire to savehimself. I think there was something behind it all that has escaped us,but"--he shrugged his shoulders as he looked about him--"what does itmatter now?"
He held the lantern at arm's length as he spoke, and looked searchinglyround. The gray stone ringed them in relentlessly. Was there anyexpedient in which they could find a challenge to the arbitrary decreeof Fate? He saw none.
The girl at his side watched him. And then her eyes met his. And as hespoke his voice was strangely gentle.
"God interfered between Landon and his evil purpose, as you said Hewould. Perhaps, who knows, He may have other mercies reserved for us.But in any case we must teach each other to be strong."
She nodded gravely.
"We are in His hands," she said, "and nothing can be as terrible as whatwas threatened us by that vile man. The boy is safe. I have the help ofyour presence. We must kill imagination with work."
He looked about him again, doubtfully.
"Work?" he questioned. "Have we the chance to work?"
"Isn't it obvious," she said. "That is a courtyard. Above the ruinswhich brim it is the sky. If we use our strength and time to pluck a waythrough that to life again, we shall, at least, not think."
He paced forward a yard or two and examined the heaped wreckage ofplaster, wooden beams, and stones. He hesitated.
"If we disturb it, there is just a chance of making our situationworse," he hazarded.
She shook her head.
"No," she said significantly. "Not worse. God might answer us that way,and save us suspense. And we shall, at any rate, have defied Fate to theend."
"Yes," he said. "In that I am with you; we will do our best--to thelast. And if God's purpose falls upon us quickly, Claire, I thank Himhere and now that He has permitted me to share this bitter cup with you,instead of draining that more bitter one which threatened an hour ago.At least I am not leaving you in Landon's hands, alone."
"And I am not helpless while they work their vile wills upon you," sheanswered. "Fate has been cruel enough, but she has spared us that. Theend? That is still her mystery. Let us forget it."
He smiled.
"There is much I can remember which will spare me that. What you havebeen and done for me these last wild days--my memory will occupy itselfwith that and hope--while I work to make hope true."
And then, still smiling as if he had plumbed the eyes of Hope and foundin them an answering smile, he laid the lantern on the flags and put hishands upon the barrier of ruin which faced him.
He toiled vigorously but with caution. As he rolled the larger blocksfrom their resting-place, he was quick to notice and to support thebeams or flagstones which they had buttressed with their weight. And heused the first plank which tumbled out of the chaos as a lever upon itsfellows. At his feet Claire worked vigorously, sweeping out the plasterwhich filled the openings as he made them, rolling aside the unseatedstones to give him room, lending her lesser strength to aid his, whensome task was trying his powers to the utmost.
For a couple of hours they toiled silently, and a gap had been hewn intothe debris--a gap which seemed to be ceaselessly filled as theaccumulations rolled into it from above, but an opening, nevertheless,which spoke of progress, which showed a reward for effort, which evenpictured, faintly and indistinctly, a vision of hope. If their strengthlasted? Was there not a chance, a tiny, elusive, but possible chance?
It was the remembrance that uninterrupted effort would fatigue them to apoint where their strength would be taxed beyond recovery which madeAylmer at last call a halt. They went and sat beside the sleeping child.To economize the light, they extinguished the lamp.
And then--they rubbed their eyes.
A tiny beam of light, dim, faint, gray but distinguishable, was filtereddown into their prison at the point where one of the cloister pillarsreached an arch. It fell upon the flags in a little circle.
Aylmer reached it in two strides. He gave an exclamation.
"It is a pipe from the spouting of the roof," he cried. "I see the sky.I see the sky!"
She was at his side in an instant. In her turn she looked up into thehollow of the tube, to see light. She gave a little gasp.
"It's wonderful--wonderful!" she breathed. "Only that little way up--tenfeet, twelve, perhaps, and freedom. And we are here!"
"It means two things of infinite importance!" he rejoined. "Air and, inall probability, water. If the gutter which discharges into this isstill intact, we shall receive the rain when it comes. And afterearthquake it comes, invariably."
She was not paying him attention. Her eye was still fixed below the tinyopening; she continued to look up as if the tiny disc of brightnessfascinated her, as if she would drink draughts of the outer air thusdelivered to them as if from an immense cistern.
And then the emotion of sudden discovery illuminated her face.
"We can signal!" she cried. "We can attract attention! We have only tothrust a rod up through that, and it will tell our tale. Surely thereare rescuers at work by now; a whole city cannot be left to its fate!"
His eyes glistened.
"God sent that thought to you--God himself!" he cried. "We must have arod; we must make one!" He turned and re-lit the lantern. He examinedthe splintered woodwork of the boat with a calculating eye.
Wood was at their service in plenty, but the tools to deal with it werewanting. Neither of them possessed a knife. He searched the pockets ofthe dead, but had no success. For a moment they stood regarding eachother in incredulous despair. Surely Fate, after bracing them with thishope, was not going to torture them by withdrawal? And then Aylmer's eyefell upon the baling slipper.
He lifted it with a gesture of relief; he tore the strip of tin from offit and held it up.
"That is our blade!" he cried. "We have only to pare down splinters tillthey will pass through the pipe, and the thing is done."
He picked up a piece of planking as he spoke, worked the metal into thegrain till a split began to gape, and then, wrapping a piece oftarpaulin round each end of his impromptu blade, worked it to and froand downwards. A thin sliver of wood was the result--one about eighteeninches long.
He repeated the operation, slowly and carefully. As each lath was splitand pared, he passed it to his companion and she spliced the ends withstrips of gray cloth. And these? Aylmer took them from the dead body atthe end of the cloister. Miller, in death, was helping to repair some ofthe injuries for which his life was responsible.
They worked methodically, without haste, but with every care. Two hourslater they had a twelve-foot staff laid out at their feet. To the topthey 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, andthen 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 acertainty. While it was wrapped round the head of the staff inside thetube, it hid all light from me. And now light has come again--dim, butthere still. It slips down between the staff and the sides. The flag isout in the air--the air!"
He nodded.
"All that remains, then, is to keep it moving--to show that human beingsare 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 noclue.
She spoke, and so supplied it herself.
"I think we shall be rescued now," she said quietly. "I feel a certaintyabout it, an instinct. Yes, I think we have defeated Fate. We shall comeback into life again, you and I."
He understood. Through the wild days in the boat and on the island, Fatehad given no chance for either of them to probe the future. Hope hadhad so tiny a place in their thoughts--hopelessness had so immeasurablyabsorbed them all. And now? Was she allowing herself to dwell on life asit would affect them untouched by Fate, and free? Was she mentallyrearranging her attitude to him?
Fate would supply her own answer. He turned and doggedly began to workthe 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 badehim rest. He surrendered it quietly, spent ten minutes in massaging hisstiffened muscles, and then took it again. It was queer, this suddenreticence which had arisen between them. It was as if while Fate delayedto speak, all other words were futile. And her answer might come at anymoment or--God help them--not at all.
The hours lengthened. The thin rays which still filtered through thehalf-closed pipe grew dim and at last died altogether. Night had come.
Aylmer turned with a little shrug, placed a plank beneath the butt ofthe 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 strongfor 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; yourstrength--God knows--has been tried enough."
There was something restrained in her voice; something which againescaped his comprehension, but his fatigue was overmastering. Hestretched himself upon a couple of flags. Sleep overcame him instantly.
Was it a moment later that he awoke in answer to her cry? So hebelieved, but as a matter of fact midnight was long past. She had lit amatch; she was holding it to the wick of the lantern.
Her eyes were wide and bright with excitement. She pointed towards thepipe.
"I could not rest!" she cried. "No, I could not sleep and know thatrescue might be passing by. I have worked at the staff ceaselessly andnow! 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 itup, 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 intoview, dangling from a string. He seized it. It was warm.
"Soup!" he cried. "Food! That is their first thought for us! And I hadforgotten that I was starving. I had forgotten it absolutely!"
He held it to her lips. She put out her hand in protest, but his gesturewas 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 tiedthe bottle again to the string and shook it. It disappeared and waslowered again, this time with wine. And half a dozen little rollsdropped at their feet. They ate, they waked the child and fed him, theysat, and from above the sound of pick and mattock in the hands of menwho toiled furiously thundered down to them. They speculated how andwhence the first sight of rescue would appear. They laughed in high,excited tones. Expectancy had them in its grip to the exclusion of allother emotions.
And then, with a sudden roar and crash, an avalanche of rubble pouredinto the hole which they had dug into the mass of debris. And with itcame a man in sailor uniform who mixed anathema and congratulation inexcited but fluent French. He wept, he fell upon Aylmer's neck andembraced him, he kissed the child and Claire's hand. Slowly they toiledat his heels, helped by a dangling rope, out into the red glare of adozen torches which were held by seamen of the French Marine.
And one of the two officers who directed them called upon the name ofGod 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 himby emotion, plying them with a thousand questions, raining tears uponlittle John Aylmer's wondering face.
They reached the market square. They looked upon the ruin which coveredthe devastated earth in the wan light of the slowly coming dawn.
Five miles away, swinging at her mooring opposite the ruined port ofMessina was a white-hulled boat--a boat which they looked at withwistfully incredulous eyes. They whispered her name.
"_The Morning Star?_" they wondered. "_The Morning Star?_"
"What else?" cried the commandant, exultantly. "That Spanish torpedoboat--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 withprisoners on board. Would that not induce your father, Mademoiselle, toput two and two together? The Melilla port authorities supplied the nameof that felucca and her destination--Sicily. He arrived two days back. Ihave seen him, we spoke together, and then God knows all our energiesand thoughts have been with these poor wretches ashore. Down in Messinayour own countrymen and the Russians are doing marvels. The _Diomede_was the only French ship, alas, in harbor, but we have others comingfrom Tunis, from Algiers, from Marseilles. We need every worker we canget. 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. "Paulwill 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 shore 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 aresuffering yet. Would you think well of me, if I left it?"
She looked at him with a smile that told of appreciation, approval, ofsomething (or was hope a lying glass?) more than these.
"No!" she said quietly. "No!" She hesitated a moment.
"And when I have found my father, eased his mind, delivered to him hisgrandchild whom he owes to you, rested, made myself strong to work, willyou come for me to do my part? Will you come--then?"
He lifted her hand. His moustache swept it.
"Till then, Claire," he whispered. "Till then, Beloved."