Part 46 (2/2)

”You see for yourself,” she answered, and made a gesture towards the motionless form on the pallet.

Landon laughed.

”No, I do not see,” he said. ”I am not a physician. I cannot walk to a bedside and deliver sentences of death or reprieves to life like the miracle mongers of Harley Street. Unconsciousness? How is it diagnosed?

Sometimes by actual experiment _in corpore vile_, is it not?” He leaned over the bed. His hand slipped into a pocket and reappeared holding an open penknife. He thrust it suddenly into Aylmer's arm.

She gave a cry of indignation; she seized his hand and dragged him back.

He laughed savagely and tried to fling her off. She threw her whole weight upon his wrist, clinging to it.

And then he laughed again, with malignant enjoyment. He changed his tactics. He no longer evaded her grip. He jerked her towards him. And this time the penknife point found a new sheath. Deliberately he stabbed it against her shoulder and--held it there!

She shrieked.

There was a stirring from the pallet bed. With a mighty leap Aylmer was on his feet! His face was convulsed; his eyes were lightnings.

For the third time Landon laughed, triumphantly. In the same motion he released his prisoner and sent her spinning against Aylmer's outstretched arm. He himself was at the door and outside it, slamming it, locking it, flinging home bolt after bolt before the two inside had recovered from the sudden shock. A moment later he reappeared at the window.

”Well, my early convalescent!” he mocked. ”Have you no thanks for such a sudden recovery? And you, sister-in-law, for such a lesson in the healing art? Think of the efforts wasted on that malingerer. Aren't you blus.h.i.+ng for the ease with which you were deceived?”

And then the twinkle of wicked laughter faded from his eyes. He drew near the window bars and glowered down at them evilly.

”Or are you blus.h.i.+ng for yourself, you wanton!” he cried. ”You who deceived me into leaving you with him as a nurse, and knew that he needed none. A little paragraph with hints--or more than hints, the truth--about such a matter, and where do you stand? Are there society rags in London and New York ready to accept that sort of matter? Yes, virtuous cousin and sister-in-law, I think there are, I think there are!”

Neither of them flinched. They looked at him fixedly and, in the girl's case, almost wonderingly. And Landon read the message of her incredulity with a chuckle of enjoyment.

”I keep on presenting surprises to you, do I not?” he grinned. ”My versatility, the quickness with which I seize new points of humor impresses you?”

For a moment she was silent. And then, as if a force beyond her control forced her to speak, she answered him.

”I did not believe in the possibility of there being a thing as vile as yourself,” she said. ”I did not think G.o.d allowed such as you to live!”

The satyr-like grin broadened across his haggard cheeks. He leered down at them.

”I revel in it!” he answered. ”By the Lord! Till you've tried absolutely unrestrained wickedness, till you've thrown off every sort of control, till you're one with the devil and proud of it, you don't know what enjoyment is!” His eyes glowed; he smote his fist ecstatically on the stones. ”It's great!” he cried. ”Great!”

A gray figure came suddenly into view behind him. Miller's face showed white against the shadow of the dusk which was heralding its coming by the deepening azure of the sea and sky. And his glance seemed to hold a significance which the prisoners were meant to read, but for which they had no clue.

Landon heard him and wheeled.

He surveyed him slowly and then he laughed.

”I'm beyond you now, teacher!” he derided. ”I used to admire you--the callousness, the relentlessness--which you could put into a job! But I'm way up above you. Decency had to be part of your stock-in-trade.”

He laughed again, his harsh, cackling merriment, and there was a note in it which struck a new chord of fear in Claire's heart. It was inhuman, unintelligent, this laughter. It fell poignantly, horribly on the ear.

”To-morrow--_manana_!” chuckled Landon. ”I'm coming back with all my friends. We'll give hours of daylight to the job and, by G.o.d! we'll make a good one! Think it over; give it your attention through the night! My terms, every word of them or--well, try and guess the persuasions I'll use. Meditate on them; paint them up in your imaginations and then you'll fall short! And as for restraints, remember that in my particular case there isn't such a thing, not one!”

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