Part 20 (1/2)
”We?” he repeated. ”We being--?”
Van Arlen looked mildly astonished.
”My daughter and I.”
Aylmer held out his hand with a pleading gesture.
”You can't afford to despise my help,” he said. ”You must take me, too.”
Van Arlen looked at Aylmer and then, questioningly, towards his daughter. She met his glance. Here at last was the opportunity to make things plain with a vengeance. They had but politely to decline.
Aylmer's voice forestalled her.
”To be impartial, that was your promise,” he said. ”We had not got far, but at least as far as that.”
In spite of herself she turned and faced him. He met her glance steadily, confidently, expectant.
She gave a queer, half-exasperated little laugh.
”I think Captain Aylmer is a man who is easily refused nothing,” she said, and pa.s.sed quietly out of the room.
CHAPTER X
BY FAVOR OF THE FOG
”I do not like this!” piped a small and dejected voice. ”I came to ride a black horse, not to be b.u.mped in this vessel forgotten of G.o.d!”
In English these words would have sounded strangely from the lips of a child of six, but little John Aylmer was fluent in the Arab jargon of his grandfather's native household.
He was sitting disconsolate in the c.o.c.kpit of the lateen _Esmeralda_.
His company was Senor Emilio Albaceda, mariner and practical exponent of the tenets of an uncompromising Free Trade. From the uncovered hatch came the sound of wind whistling in the cordage and the swish and thud of the combers breaking past. Upon one of the narrow bunks which flanked the tiny cabin lay Landon, fast asleep. A guttering and extremely odoriferous lamp of vegetable oil was the sole illuminant. The prospects of comfort and entertainment in such surroundings were not those likely to appeal to a child accustomed to luxury and constant attention.
”_Pazienza!_” grunted the skipper, good-humoredly. ”Black horses are not found upon the sea, though a friend of mine who prefers the running of contraband to the priesthood for which his parents destined him, read me once verses from a journal--true poetry in praise of a boot polish the name of which does not stay by me--where the waves of the Atlantic were likened unto stallions white-maned. I confess I thought the notion original.”
The child stared at him meditatively.
”If horses are not to be found upon the sea and we seek horses, why do not we forsake the sea for the land?” There was a note of antic.i.p.ation in the query which seemed to find this argument conclusive.
The smuggler grinned.
”Excellently argued, son of much intelligence,” he answered. ”Land is what we shall seek when this gale breathed from Jehannum permits us to do so in safety. For the moment we drive before it, there being no harbors on this coast within a thousand miles.”
The child moved restlessly.
”Where then can we land?” he demanded.
”Where G.o.d and His Mother and the Holy Saints permit,” said Senor Albaceda, suddenly reverting to _lingua franca_ to clothe a piety of sentiment which the Moslem religion ignores. The One Allah's plans, being laid from the foundation of the world, are not susceptible to the influences of human appeal.