The Pursuit Part 57

And as Aylmer looked down he felt a thrill of what must have been nearly akin to sympathy. G.o.d help the mutilated wretch!

His arms hung beside him limp and helpless, the fractured bones distorted in hideous angles. There were marks as of burns upon his face.

But the supreme horror was in the sockets which held nothing recognizable as human eyes. Coals might have lain within them--coals pressed down to find their quenching there.

He moaned ceaselessly, swinging himself from side to side. And then words came slowly, piteously, one by one.

"Oil!" he gasped. "For G.o.d's sake, a little oil--upon my eyes!"

Sigismondi shuddered. Then he bent and placed his hand compa.s.sionately on the scarred temple.

"As soon as it can be found, my brother," he said. "Try to keep your courage while we do our utmost. We have to carry you--where you can be treated."

The tortured wretch moaned again and made an instinctive effort to raise a hand to his face. He shrieked as the shattered bones failed him, shrieked and cursed in hideous blasphemies. His brain began to wander upon the border-line of delirium.

"Hours--days--weeks," he wailed. "Broken--broken! Immovable and always in agony--burning--my eyes--my eyes! And the rain--running over them and bringing more agony--and more--and more. And unable to move a finger. My feet hanging in emptiness--my hands crushed in upon me--crushed--crushed--crushed!"

The quartermaster made a gesture of infinite compa.s.sion.

"The room had been newly plastered, do you see?" he whispered. "He was caught bodily--in the closing of the walls--as a nutcracker closes. And he was held and crushed--like the nut. The lime was deep upon his face--and when the rain came, was.h.i.+ng it in--eating him--" He turned away with another pregnant motion of his hands, as if he put from him the picture which imagination conjured up.

Aylmer leaned down and spoke.

"We are going to take you from here," he said. "We are going to lift you. Be prepared."

Landon's groans ceased. His body became suddenly rigid with attention.

"Jack?" he whispered incredulously. "Jack?"

"It is I," said Aylmer gravely. "I--am unhurt."

Landon's face grew yet more distorted.

"Claire?" he muttered eagerly. "Claire--is gone?"

A light gleamed tempestuously in Aylmer's eyes and then as quickly died.

His voice was even and restrained.

"She is safe, and well," he said. "She is on her father's yacht."

An inarticulate howl of rage burst from Landon's lips. He rocked himself to and fro; he made as if he would beat his broken hands upon the stones.

"G.o.d! If they'd suffered alongside me, if they'd been there, if they had given me groan for groan, I could have stood it--enjoyed it--d.a.m.n them, I could have laughed with the lime in my eyes, if they'd been there--if they'd been there!"

He jerked himself to a sitting posture; he writhed backwards and forwards. His spite was a sort of ecstasy, possessing him, freeing him, as it seemed, from even the sense of pain.

Aylmer made a significant motion. He bent and slipped his arms beneath Landon's shoulders. The quartermaster lifted his knees.

Landon struggled in their arms.

"Let me be!" he cried. "Let me stand. d.a.m.n you, let me stand upon my own feet!"

They hesitated. Then with a shrug the quartermaster laid down his burden.

"This is no place for a blind man to pick his way," he remonstrated. "To get down, Monsieur, you have to poise yourself along the wall thirty feet above the square."

Landon stood panting and leaning against his cousin. The spasms of agony were convulsing his face.

"I will not be carried," he panted. "I'll walk upon my feet--like a man."

They looked at each other, hesitating.

"But your arms?" protested Aylmer. "Your arms?"

The breath hissed between Landon's teeth.

"My arms!" he repeated. "G.o.d! If I'd my arms! You--you must lead me--carefully--carefully. Put your hand upon my shoulder; keep close--close."

For a dozen yards he tottered along, and the sweat broke out astream upon his scars. And then he halted, and stumbled.

The quartermaster instinctively put a hand upon one of the broken wrists. Landon shrieked, and cursed him hideously.

"Monsieur might have fallen," apologized the man. "My excuses, Monsieur, but it was so quick--so near--the danger. The drop is sheer, do you see, sheer down to the square."

Landon gasped. "Which side?" he asked thickly. "Which side?"

"The right," said Aylmer. "Lean away from me, inwards, to the left!"

Landon drew a deep breath.

The next instant he had flung himself against Aylmer's guiding hand, outwards, to the right!

For the second time the quartermaster cried aloud and stretched out a hand. But it was not Landon's sleeve which it reached, but Aylmer's--reached and gripped it while the two bodies reeled upon the crumbling edge and sent the flying blocks down to break into powder upon the solid flags below.

And then, where two had struggled, one alone remained and clung. Landon had gone. Like the blocks he lay thirty feet below--broken.

CHAPTER XXVIII

FATE SMILES AT LAST

A pall of mist and driving rain closed upon the city as evening fell, as if Nature flung a veil between herself and the handiwork of her pa.s.sions. Through it the launch of the _Diomede_ threaded the network of the s.h.i.+pping.

Warmly red against the ghost-like paintwork, the ports of _The Morning Star_ beamed up out of the smother. Aylmer held up his hand. Silently, with stopped engines, the boat slid up to the accommodation ladder, and as silently Aylmer swung himself aboard.

With a gesture of farewell to the boat's crew and one of greeting to the sailor at the gangway head, he pa.s.sed into the companion and went below.

In the doorway of the saloon he halted.