Part 28 (1/2)

”It's the pig man,” said a childish voice. ”The man what lifted me out of the way of the boar.”

Aylmer blinked. Himself in the shadow, he was aware of a figure opposite him in the center of a circle of light. He lay, apparently, in a circular and unfurnished room, lit by an unglazed skylight alone. The figure, which sat cross-legged on a lump which his returning senses discovered to be a dead horse, wore the white _haik_ and the bournous of a Moor. The hood was drawn back, showing bronzed aquiline features and a brown beard, but the man's eyes were blue. Aylmer studied the face with a feeling of bewilderment which gradually became irritation. He was stunned, but consciousness had so far returned that he knew himself stunned, and knew, also, that his brain was confronting a problem which his normal powers would have grappled with easily. He ought to be able to recognize his visitor; there was familiarity, there was recognition in the man's sneering smile. And yet, who was he? Aylmer moved restlessly, petulantly. An excruciating pang leaped up through his shoulder and made him gasp. The man shrugged his shoulders.

”Dislocated, I fear,” he said in level English accents. ”And the collar-bone most certainly fractured.”

Aylmer's ear served him where his eyes had failed. The voice was Landon's. It was his cousin who sat opposite him, smiling evilly from the shadow of the _haik_.

Something touched the wounded shoulder lightly, but not so lightly but that Aylmer winced again.

”Poor--poor!” said the childish voice again commiseratingly. ”Is it badly hurted? When I fell off my pony they rubbed me wiv b.u.t.ter.”

It was his little namesake, swaddled in white flowing garments, who stood at his elbow, peering into his face with anxious eyes.

Aylmer pulled himself into a sitting position, not without intense pain.

But the throb of his wounded arm seemed to awake his dulled consciousness. He looked from father to son without bewilderment. His understanding had fully regained command of the situation.

His first action was typical of the man; he fumbled with his left hand at his holster.

Landon laughed.

”Empty, my dear John,” he said. ”Fogs, gales, the menacing hand of nature I do not pretend to have my remedy for. But I retain the common-sense which deprives my enemy of a weapon, when opportunity is my friend.”

Aylmer was still silent. Landon gave a self-satisfied little nod of the head, a little motion which implied the insolence of triumph fully enjoyed.

”And by opportunity, please understand that I do not refer to mere chance,” he went on. ”The little _ruse de guerre_ by which you and your a.s.sociates were drawn into this trap was the product of an active brain, not mine, I grieve to say. A friend who has seen much of desert bickerings did not invent but adapted it. I don't think many of your beautiful Goumiers escaped him and his allies.”

There was something more than disgust and repulsion in the glance with which Aylmer regarded his cousin. It was, perhaps, wonder.

”Libertine--blackmailer--spy--and thief--you have proved yourself all of these within the s.p.a.ce of half a dozen years,” he said quietly. ”And now, traitor, and, I suppose, a.s.sa.s.sin. It puzzles me. Clean living isn't so hard, and yet, you have never tried it, never!”

A queer line showed in Landon's cheek, as his lips tightened against each other. And then he laughed again--a harsh, unconvincing little laugh.

”Is the first line of attack an appeal to my better nature?” he asked.

”Omit it, my friend. However good your aim, you cannot reach a target which, to be frank, is non-existent. Appeals to my self-interest find me alert, but to my conscience, chill as ice. We may chaffer, you and I, but on strictly business lines.”

He settled himself back upon the dead horse's shoulder, pulled out a silver case, and selected a cigarette. He lit it, talking slowly, between puffs.

”My apparently unkinsmanlike conduct in offering no attention to your wound is easily explained. It is a small matter, involved in far larger issues. If you meet my terms, our limited resources in that and other matters will be at your service. If not--” He shrugged his shoulders placidly. ”Well, I do not suppose a prison governor pays attention to the condemned's complaints of his breakfast egg on the morning of execution.”

He moved, leaning forward at last, his elbows on his knees, his palms supporting his chin. And he looked down at Aylmer malignantly.

”And I have you here to make or break as I will,” he said. ”By G.o.d!

Opportunity doesn't call me twice. I clutch her!”

The child turned with a little start, looking at his father with puzzled but not apprehensive eyes. The note of malice in that voice was evidently strange to him, and Aylmer, as he understood this fact, breathed a tiny sigh of relief. The child, at any rate, did not suffer ill-treatment.

Landon saw the motion and his features relaxed into something like affection.

He held out his hands.

”Come here, my son,” he said. ”Go and find Muhammed.”