The Pursuit Part 56

"And when I have found my father, eased his mind, delivered to him his grandchild whom he owes to you, rested, made myself strong to work, will you come for me to do my part? Will you come--then?"

As the dawn rose over Messina's city of the dead, in John Aylmer's heart rose the dawn of hope fulfilled. Her eyes? What message did they not give? He read it as plainly as he knew he would read it at their next meeting--from her lips.

He lifted her hand. His moustache swept it.

"Till then, Claire," he whispered. "Till then, Beloved."

CHAPTER XXVII

SHADOWS GO

Dawn flushed into full daylight as the sun rose upon the ruined city.

Morning dragged its length to midday and midday merged in afternoon. And the workers toiled on doggedly, burrowing, hewing, climbing, flinging their energies, risking their lives, against the inanimate barriers of destruction. Italian and Frenchman, Englishman and Russian vied with each other in deeds of humanity against the common foe. Nor was that foe content with the victory already won. Further shocks furrowed the stricken sh.o.r.es: ruin became more complete, danger more menacing, but the toilers worked on.

Aylmer's rescuers had gone aboard their s.h.i.+p and had been replaced by a new relay. He himself remained. The pressing needs of those who lay, as he had lain, in living tombs around him were first in his mind. But another thought was ceaseless. Certainty--that was what he asked.

Certainty of Landon's fate. He scarcely allowed himself to realize how he hoped--_yearned_--to know definitely that Landon was dead. He simply contemplated it as a matter of completeness, as news that would bring infinite relief to those on board _The Morning Star_. If he were alive?

He set his lips grimly. Though law was suspended, order out of gear, Landon should meet his deserts. If not by instruments of Italian justice, then by Aylmer's own hands--by the law of retribution, not the law of revenge.

He dropped the mattock which he had been wielding. He stood up and straightened himself, turning his eyes from the wearying expanse of wreckage towards the sea.

A boat was running up beside the ruined jetty. Before the mooring ropes were cast ash.o.r.e a tall figure leaped from it--a figure clad in a _soutane_.

Aylmer made an exclamation, hesitated, and then clambered down the walls and ran across the uneven flags, holding out his hand.

Padre Sigismondi flung up his arms. His gesture was one of incredulous relief.

"But the Signora?" he cried, stricken with sudden apprehension. He panted, his eyes were vivid with anxiety. "The Signora?"

As Aylmer answered with the one vital word, the priest cried aloud again. He lifted his face towards the sky and made the sign of the cross.

"Safe!" he repeated. "Safe! If there was a single hope left to me amid the horrors which have overwhelmed us, it was that. I told myself that G.o.d, who allowed me to fail in my duty to you through my arrogant self-confidence, might be saving you in the midst of--and by--this destruction. When I came to myself and found you gone, I writhed. My friend, I cast myself upon the ground in the agonies of my self-reproach. Not to have plumbed the wicked devices of these men--I, who have worked among them a score of years!"

Aylmer gripped his hand.

"You, yourself?" he inquired. "You come here--how?"

"One of the many boats which were speeding to Messina--some, alas, with no charitable intent, I fear--saw my signals and took me off. And now?

One scarcely knows where to begin. How can one confront such a disaster with one's puny efforts? G.o.d send me His strength! My own is as water!"

A shout echoed to them suddenly from the group of sailors. One stood up and waved to them with his neckcloth.

Aylmer made an answering gesture. He took the priest's arm.

"Begin here, father," he said quietly. "Some of those we have found are alive, but death's claim, I fear, is relaxed for no more than an hour or two. They need your offices. It may be for such an one that they are signalling to us now."

They hurried across the square. They climbed the pyramid of ruin.

The sailors were looking down at something which lay at their feet--something brown, and white, and vivid red.

The quartermaster pointed to a crevice in the masonry.

"There is a hollow," he explained. "We pulled him out by the arms, which--G.o.d forgive us--are broken. There are in there, perhaps, others.

His eyes imply it. Words are beyond him."

The priest gave a startled exclamation. Aylmer echoed it. Disfigured, battered, crushed as it was, they recognized the figure in the blood-stained _djelab_ of brown.

A growing dimness was clouding Muhammed's eyes. The quick pant of his breathing weakened as they watched. But a flash of feeling illuminated the pallid features as the Moor's glance reached and dwelled upon Aylmer's face.

His lips moved.

"The child?" he asked in a faint whisper. "The Sidi Jan?"

Padre Sigismondi darted an inquiring look at his companion and then knelt beside the dying man.

"The child is well," he answered gravely. "Yourself? Is there no message to give, no delivery of your soul you wish to make? Time is short for you. Use it, and me, as you wish."

The brown eyes searched the priest's features with a queer disdain, as it seemed--or was it, perchance, compa.s.sion. The stiffening lips became more grimly resolute.

"I proclaim!" said the Moor. "I proclaim that there is One G.o.d--One G.o.d--," and pa.s.sed, unfaltering, to meet Him.

For a moment there was silence. Aylmer broke it.

"Perhaps we owe him more than we think," he said slowly. "The boy? That was always his first care. Perhaps he stood between the child and harm.

I believe that he would have done so in the face of the child's father himself!"

Sigismondi drew a fold of the _djelab_ over the bruised face.

"The G.o.d to whom he appealed is his judge," he said. "Let us leave it in His hands. The living, now, my friend. It is not here that we can concern ourselves with the dead."

They turned to the sailors. Half a dozen blocks had been rolled from the opening, which gaped wide over an empty darkness. The quartermaster slung himself carefully down into it and slowly disappeared.

A moment later they heard his voice.

"A rope," he demanded. "Here is one who is, at least, warm."

They pa.s.sed down a rope carefully. Aylmer's heart became suddenly audible to himself. What would appear; what had Fate still in store for him?

Again the quartermaster's voice echoed from the darkness with directions. The sailors bent their backs and hauled.

A face appeared in the opening, travelling upwards.

Aylmer felt no surprise. This was the expected, the inevitable. Landon was dragged out into the day--Landon--alive.

They laid him silently at his cousin's feet.