Part 42 (2/2)
”By G.o.d, I have!” he cried. ”Your thick body and your ox's nerves? You can pit them against me, if you like! What about your finer feelings, as I suppose you'd call them? What about your honor? And--what about--_hers_?”
He shot the question out fiercely, insistently, pointing at Claire.
A sudden dryness coated Aylmer's lips.
”What do you mean?” he demanded. He rose, too, towering over Landon from the full height of his stature and that, indeed, seemed to have added inches to itself since the other spoke.
But Landon, drunk with venom, did not flinch.
”Look at her!” he cried, still pointing. ”Look at her! And if you defy me, you shall have something more to look at before long! I'll deal with her; I'll let these men have their will of her; I'll drag her through filth enough--I'll--”
His voice broke hideously into a shriek of pain. Aylmer had flung off the las.h.i.+ngs on his wrists and continued the movement, as it were, into one direct, smas.h.i.+ng blow on Landon's mouth!
And Landon fell as a log falls, stark, inert, his head meeting the tiller end in his fall with frightful emphasis. He rolled into the scuppers at the captain's feet, b.l.o.o.d.y, disfigured, unconscious as the deck itself.
There was a rush from the two deck hands. Muhammed came flying aft.
Aylmer dodged, landed his fist on the Moor's temple, evaded the hands stretched out for him, and sprang for the rigging. Within the s.p.a.ce of seconds he was standing upon the great cross spar of the lateen, leaning against the mast, and waving his arms in semaph.o.r.e-wise towards the gray stern of the torpedo boat as she slid away against the disc of the setting sun.
The captain yelled aloud with fury.
”He is signalling to them!” he screamed. ”G.o.d's Mother! If they see him we're undone!”
A sudden light gleamed in Claire's eyes, a light of hope, of relief and--bright above them all--admiration. This was a man. Her woman's blood quickened to the knowledge that his man's strength had been used brutally, splendidly, for her. She cried aloud her encouragement. She waved her hand.
”Make them see you, make them!” she called. She beat her open hand upon the taffrail in her pa.s.sion.
The gunboat slowed. Half a dozen signal flags rushed up to her peak. The white foam of her wake disappeared slowly with the stopping of her engines. Captain Luigi cried out again; he addressed invectives to things terrestrial and to celestial things apostrophes at a set value in candles, using both forms of eloquence impartially to goad his hesitating deck hands to pull Aylmer from his eyrie at the risk of their lives. The mariners shook their heads.
And then, at the captain's ear, harshly, snippingly, between his teeth, Miller spoke.
”Let go the halliards!” he hissed. ”Let go the halliards!”
And Claire Van Arlen heard.
She cried out to Aylmer warningly, shrill in her despair. He did not hear or, perhaps, in the intentness of his task, did not heed. She cried out again.
Too late!
The two men flung themselves upon the ropes which held the great lateen yard in place, slacked them, payed them out suddenly a couple of yards.
Aylmer tottered, rocked forward, and then maintained his hand hold upon the mast. But this time the men reversed the operation. With a tremendous effort they jerked the ropes. The spar leaped upwards!
And Aylmer shot into the air and landed stunningly upon the planking at Claire Van Arlen's feet.
CHAPTER XXI
FATE STAYS HER HAND
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