The Pursuit Part 53

Like a chip upon the surface of a torrent which suddenly hastens to the brink of the cascade, the boat and its burden of lives was s.n.a.t.c.hed along. The three who stood and gripped its gunwale saw the broad expanse of the Marina before them, saw it seem to sink as they themselves rose upon the flood, saw how they raced across it twenty feet above the level of its flags. And they saw more--saw it with eyes which seemed to sear their brains with antic.i.p.ation, with despair.

This!

A long, irregular, deep-fronted row of dwellings, square to the sea, square to the reeling ridge of ocean which was sweeping upon them as the gust sweeps down upon the far-flung autumn leaves.

They called aloud in chorus; they challenged Fate with their despair.

And Fate replied.

The waters reached the walls; the huge sheet of spray shot high into the night. But the dingy pa.s.sed on uncrushed.

An alley opened before them--an alley through which they shot on the roaring tide into the square beyond, sank down as the dwindling waters sank and with their last effort of destruction reached, and were borne into an arched opening girt about with trees. And then that, in its turn, became a ruin of plaster and planks and stone. The wave completed what the earthquake had all too thoroughly begun. The roof and walls crashed down into a grim monument upon a living grave.

CHAPTER XXVI

DAWN COMES

Out of the darkness of insensibility consciousness came slowly into being in Aylmer's brain, but memory lagged to join it. He was bound--that he realized, and his teeth were immovable upon a gag. The darkness was absolute and so, for the first few minutes through which his senses woke, was the silence. He could feel rough slabs of wood which cased his body in. He s.h.i.+fted uneasily and beat his temple upon a plank. The sweat of terror broke out upon his brow. He was buried alive!

G.o.d help him! The worst that could happen to a living soul was his sentence 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 which he had been carried, blind, speechless, and bound, became a picture in his brain--a picture the more vivid in that actuality had been hidden from him and imagination had supplied details beyond the compa.s.s of the real. He stirred afresh, he writhed, his bound wrists beat out upon the air.

The whimpers ceased and words followed--words in a child's voice shaken by fear. A trembling hand found Aylmer's sleeve, crept up it to his cheek, and halted there in miserable hesitation.

"It's me--it's me!" whispered the voice. "Can't you speak? Oh, can't you speak to me?"

And then the wandering fingers found the linen band which bound the gag into 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 the awkwardness of haste, but a moment later the pressure ceased. He spat the gag from between his teeth.

"Little John!" he cried. "Little John! Are you hurt? are you able to stand?"

The boy clutched him with a sort of desperation of relief.

"Oh, you _can_ speak--you _can_ speak!" he shouted joyously. "My head aches and my shoulder doesn't move right, but I can stand. I can reach nothing above my head--or right--or left."

There was a creaking of timber as he moved, stretching his hands, as was evident, into the black emptiness about the boat. Aylmer's bound wrists were lifted to reach him.

"Pick at them--as you did before, little John," he said. "Loose me, so that we can search the darkness together."

The child's breath came in zealous pants as he tugged and pulled, but the knots were tightly lashed and sodden with the sea. And his haste was a handicap; he plucked and twisted ineffectually. And finally he overbalanced himself and slipped.

He gave a cry of pain.

"I'm hurted--I'm bleeding!" he sobbed. "I fell against something that cut!"

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 this horror of helplessness to be added to those which already had them in their 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 painful effort, he twisted himself round in the darkness till his bound wrists found as their goal the child's cap which still covered his untidy mane of curls. And these were wet and sticky.

The reason was not far to seek. The baling slipper lay below little John's temple--the baling slipper mended with a rough strip of tin. And this had cut through cap and curls, down to the bone. It had finished what terror had begun. The boy had fainted.

Aylmer's first impulse was to use the whole of his tethered strength in bringing consciousness back to the child--to what was, he considered, his only chance of freedom. A moment later chance pointed a quicker road. 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 cut him would cut his bonds. Crouching down he managed to grip the slipper between his knees and steady it there. And then he rasped his las.h.i.+ngs upon its edge.

A minute sufficed, or even less. The cord frayed, gave strand by strand, and broke apart with a tw.a.n.g. He gasped with relief and fell to work upon his ankles. As these bonds loosened and fell away in their turn, he stood up, rising slowly and stretching his hands above his head. He touched nothing.

He sighed not only with relief, this time, but with a faint tinge of hope. 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 gave another exclamation of self-encouragement. For her cheek was warm.

He plucked the gag from her lips; his hands were already at her wrists as she uttered his name. He thrilled to the anxiety in her voice.

"You?" she asked anxiously. "You? You were uninjured. I heard you speak and--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--I do not know it yet--how far you yourself were unhurt."

His fingers were unlas.h.i.+ng her feet now. He heard her stir into a sitting 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 up against it. Her energy had been more than her strength; she leaned against 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 within his own, one upon his shoulder. And through the darkness he sent out his appeal to Fate. If the grim G.o.ddess had no farther favors in her store for him, let her hand close upon him there. Might there be no more weary struggles; might the end find him and the girl whose hand clung to his in this intimate protection at once. Let death come in that moment, and he would ask no more.

Fate gave no answer and the moment pa.s.sed.

She gave a little sob and, still holding him, staggered to her feet.

"It is the stiffness, and the long hours bound. And the anxiety--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 is still at my waist. I have--have matches, if the sea water has spared them!"

Light! Could they pierce this wall of darkness; could they actually hope to see how and where they were caged? He scarcely dared to breathe as he heard her silver chain of trinkets tinkle, and heard the rasp of the match-head on the box. The red spark sputtered against the blackness and then flared into yellow being as the wax took flame. They looked about them with more than curiosity. With awe.

High above their head was an arch of masonry, ma.s.sively mortised, curving from a wall to a row of squat, solid pillars; and these last flanked a pile of heaped rubble and stone. They were in a pa.s.sage some twenty feet long, closed at each end as the unwalled side was closed by the wreck of the house above. It was a cloister. And the open courtyard which it had rimmed was now a stupendous rubbish heap, ma.s.sed high above their heads with ruin.

They looked down. They still stood in the boat, and at Aylmer's feet the child was huddled in unconsciousness, the blood still welling slowly from the cut on his brow. Beyond them something indefinite and unrecognizable 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 of the Carbineers. His lips were grim and set. His right hand still clutched the breach of a rifle. And at his belt was a lantern--the gla.s.s broken, but the tin intact. Aylmer's hands trembled as they fell upon this 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 the oil was unspilt. For a time, at least, darkness was not to be among the terrors 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 was fast draining through the wrenched seams of the boat, and gently laved the unconscious face. Little John stirred drowsily, opened his eyes reluctantly, and looked up with wonder into her face.