The Pursuit Part 17

Through a pregnant instant of silence they confronted one another. Then Aylmer spurred forward with a shout.

"Don't let them escape!" he roared. "A hundred dollars to the man who takes him!"

The two fugitives turned and ran desperately down the path, seeking wildly for an opening in the surrounding jungle. Surprise and terror appeared to have dazed them, for they pa.s.sed several avenues of escape heedlessly, made half-hearted attempts to turn, and still blundered on between the caging walls of green. Aylmer thundered behind them, drawing nearer with every stride. He leaned forward in the saddle; his arm reached out within a yard of Landon's flying draperies; he spurred fiercely into his horse's flanks.

The two men leaped right and left into the green thicket as divers leap into the blue. And in the same instant something rose out of the earth--something thin, snake-like, starting suddenly into being, as it were, from the concealing smother of the dust into a rigid line knee high. Aylmer's horse stumbled, shot forward, and went down heavily. His rider was flung far beyond him, moved spasmodically once, and then lay still. The squadron of charging hors.e.m.e.n were trapped in their turn. Not one escaped. The goad of Aylmer's bribe had sent every man of them charging in the wake of his leaders.h.i.+p. The taut-held rope accounted for them all, or for all save one. Absalaam, a consummate horseman, reined in on the brink of disaster, rearing his stallion high into the air.

The road was an inferno of yelling men and blood-stained horses.

The few Moors who were not stunned and incapacitated by their fall had to endure the perils of half a hundred wildly struggling hoofs. Scarcely six out of the score who had thundered so carelessly after their easy quarry fought a way for themselves out of the melee unharmed.

And of those six there was not one who did not come to a sudden halt with uplifted fingers as they gained the open road. A revolver barrel was pointed at each man's breast.

Ten or a dozen men had emerged from the thicket. They used no words; their fingers, significantly pressed upon the triggers, were eloquent enough. Only one spoke--Landon, who strolled slowly and panting a little into the circle which the menace of his underlings had formed.

He halted opposite Claire Van Arlen.

"Eh, sister-in-law!" he chuckled smilingly.

Her face was white, but her hand, which gripped the reins, was steady.

And her gaze burnt upon his face in loathing and contempt.

"Rather neat?" said Landon, amiably. "I plume myself. My resources were limited, you see. I may congratulate myself upon having used them to the very best advantage."

Still she was silent and still her eyes flung him their message of hate. He gave a pleasant little laugh. He made a significant jerk of the head in the direction of the chaos behind him.

"And the virtuous cousin," he said. "What a fall is there, is there not?

A hundred dollars! He actually appraised my poor liberty so high!"

For a moment the expression in her glance changed as she turned it in the direction of the still struggling horses and their riders. He saw it and laughed again.

"You divide your anxieties," he said. "Let me relieve you of one!"

He stretched out his hand and laid it gently upon his son's shoulder.

"Are you coming with your father--to ride the black horse upon the sands?" he asked.

The child looked at him debatingly. His face lit up at the question, and then shadowed again as he turned his glance upon the motionless white figure on the mule beside him.

"Auntie won't have it--and Selim," he deplored.

"Won't they?" said Landon, good-humoredly. "I think they will."

He stared up in the girl's face with insolent satisfaction.

"In fact," he went on, "they've got to. Vulgarly, my boy, they may not like it, so they must lump it."

He made a gesture of command.

"Come, my son!" he said, motioning him to dismount.

A tension broke. She lifted up her riding-whip and struck hard at him, struck with the concentrated strength of pa.s.sion and despair. He leaped aside, but the end of the lash reached him and left a staring weal of red upon his cheek.

He cursed aloud; he made as if he would spring at her.

A warning cry came from behind him; half a dozen revolver shots rang out upon the evening air.

Absalaam, sitting stark upon his stallion, covered by the revolvers which encircled him, had struck his spurs against his horse's flank. The fire in the animal's blood had responded in a great leap forward. Landon wheeled round to see, towering above him, man and horse, looming gigantic against the glare of the sunset. Instinctively, automatically, he threw up the muzzle of his own revolver, and fired full at the Moor's broad chest.

The other bullets flew wide, but that one, so near was the human target, had no room to miss. Absalaam fell limply, heavily from the saddle, fell at his mistress's feet. The horse tore past a dozen restraining hands into liberty.

There was shouting, confusion, the rattle of other shots. And then the voice of the brown _djelabed_ man thundered out high above the uproar.

"In G.o.d's name, Sidi, have haste. Four of them have fled into the thicket! G.o.d alone knows what help they may bring their fellows and how soon!"

And Landon, who had been flung to his knees in the dust, rose swiftly, without another word s.n.a.t.c.hed his son from the saddle, and led the way into the jungle.

In five short minutes he had come, conquered, and gone. He had won every trick, every trick! Claire pa.s.sed her hand across her brow as she stared at the huddle of wounded and--she shuddered in agony as the thought thrilled--perchance the dead! What lay within that ring of broken bodies--what? With white lips and fear-brimmed eyes she slipped from her saddle to see.

CHAPTER IX

AYLMER IS EXPLICIT

It seemed to Aylmer that the world into which he woke was one of stillness, of neutral tints, of intrinsic peace. There was a hint of suns.h.i.+ne diluted by the green hangings in front of the windows, but no more than a hint. There was a faint echo of the sound of falling water floating in with the light, but merely an echo. There was, in fact, but the slightest suggestion of life in his surroundings, and that came from the silently regular rise and fall of the bosom of the sleeping man who sat at his bedside. Aylmer blinked and stared in mild surprise, for the man was Daoud.

He moved restlessly under the sheets. Where was he? Into what unsought refuge had Fate flung him now?

His movement, slight as it was, aroused the Moor. With a little self-reproachful exclamation he stood up and leaned over the bed.

"Oh, Sidi!" he cried, "it rejoices my heart to read the light of understanding in your eyes."

Aylmer blinked again bewilderedly.

"Where am I and what do you here?" he asked.

"You are in Villa Eulalia, Sidi, and where should I be but in attendance on my lord?"

Astonishment lifted Aylmer into a weak attempt to rise. The Moor put a hand upon his shoulder and firmly pressed him back.

"Nay, Sidi," he said respectfully. "The German doctor lord expressly forbade that you should raise your head from the pillow till he had seen you again."

Aylmer began to feel as if his wits as well as his body had been bludgeoned. Circ.u.mstances seemed to have leaped freakishly beyond his recollection.

"I was brought here when?" he asked.

"Yesterday, Sidi. Your brain was sorely smitten inside your skull, or so I understood the man of medicines. For fifteen hours you have lain as one feigning death, though breathing. Now you have come into the right of your senses again. This the medicine man also prophesied."