by Frank Savile
CHAPTER XXVII
SHADOWS GO
Dawn flushed into full daylight as the sun rose upon the ruined city.Morning dragged its length to midday and midday merged in afternoon. Andthe workers toiled on doggedly, burrowing, hewing, climbing, flingingtheir energies, risking their lives, against the inanimate barriers ofdestruction. Italian and Frenchman, Englishman and Russian vied witheach other in deeds of humanity against the common foe. Nor was that foecontent with the victory already won. Further shocks furrowed thestricken shores: ruin became more complete, danger more menacing, butthe toilers worked on.
Aylmer's rescuers had gone aboard their ship and had been replaced by anew relay. He himself remained. The pressing needs of those who lay, ashe had lain, in living tombs around him were first in his mind. Butanother thought was ceaseless. Certainty--that was what he asked.Certainty of Landon's fate. He scarcely allowed himself to realize howhe hoped--_yearned_--to know definitely that Landon was dead. He simplycontemplated it as a matter of completeness, as news that would bringinfinite relief to those on board _The Morning Star_. If he were alive?He set his lips grimly. Though law was suspended, order out of gear,Landon should meet his deserts. If not by instruments of Italianjustice, then by Aylmer's own hands--by the law of retribution, not thelaw of revenge.
He dropped the mattock which he had been wielding. He stood up andstraightened himself, turning his eyes from the wearying expanse ofwreckage towards the sea.
A boat was running up beside the ruined jetty. Before the mooring ropeswere cast ashore a tall figure leaped from it--a figure clad in a_soutane_.
Aylmer made an exclamation, hesitated, and then clambered down the wallsand ran across the uneven flags, holding out his hand.
Padre Sigismondi flung up his arms. His gesture was one of incredulousrelief.
"But the Signora?" he cried, stricken with sudden apprehension. Hepanted, his eyes were vivid with anxiety. "The Signora?"
As Aylmer answered with the one vital word, the priest cried aloudagain. He lifted his face towards the sky and made the sign of thecross.
"Safe!" he repeated. "Safe! If there was a single hope left to me amidthe horrors which have overwhelmed us, it was that. I told myself thatGod, who allowed me to fail in my duty to you through my arrogantself-confidence, might be saving you in the midst of--and by--thisdestruction. When I came to myself and found you gone, I writhed. Myfriend, I cast myself upon the ground in the agonies of myself-reproach. Not to have plumbed the wicked devices of these men--I,who have worked among them a score of years!"
Aylmer gripped his hand.
"You, yourself?" he inquired. "You come here--how?"
"One of the many boats which were speeding to Messina--some, alas, withno charitable intent, I fear--saw my signals and took me off. And now?One scarcely knows where to begin. How can one confront such a disasterwith one's puny efforts? God send me His strength! My own is as water!"
A shout echoed to them suddenly from the group of sailors. One stood upand waved to them with his neckcloth.
Aylmer made an answering gesture. He took the priest's arm.
"Begin here, father," he said quietly. "Some of those we have found arealive, but death's claim, I fear, is relaxed for no more than an hour ortwo. They need your offices. It may be for such an one that they aresignalling to us now."
They hurried across the square. They climbed the pyramid of ruin.
The sailors were looking down at something which lay at theirfeet--something brown, and white, and vivid red.
The quartermaster pointed to a crevice in the masonry.
"There is a hollow," he explained. "We pulled him out by the arms,which--God forgive us--are broken. There are in there, perhaps, others.His eyes imply it. Words are beyond him."
The priest gave a startled exclamation. Aylmer echoed it. Disfigured,battered, crushed as it was, they recognized the figure in theblood-stained _djelab_ of brown.
A growing dimness was clouding Muhammed's eyes. The quick pant of hisbreathing weakened as they watched. But a flash of feeling illuminatedthe pallid features as the Moor's glance reached and dwelled uponAylmer's face.
His lips moved.
"The child?" he asked in a faint whisper. "The Sidi Jan?"
Padre Sigismondi darted an inquiring look at his companion and thenknelt beside the dying man.
"The child is well," he answered gravely. "Yourself? Is there no messageto give, no delivery of your soul you wish to make? Time is short foryou. Use it, and me, as you wish."
The brown eyes searched the priest's features with a queer disdain, asit seemed--or was it, perchance, compassion. The stiffening lips becamemore grimly resolute.
"I proclaim!" said the Moor. "I proclaim that there is One God--OneGod--," and passed, unfaltering, to meet Him.
For a moment there was silence. Aylmer broke it.
"Perhaps we owe him more than we think," he said slowly. "The boy? Thatwas always his first care. Perhaps he stood between the child and harm.I believe that he would have done so in the face of the child's fatherhimself!"
Sigismondi drew a fold of the _djelab_ over the bruised face.
"The God to whom he appealed is his judge," he said. "Let us leave it inHis hands. The living, now, my friend. It is not here that we canconcern ourselves with the dead."
They turned to the sailors. Half a dozen blocks had been rolled from theopening, which gaped wide over an empty darkness. The quartermasterslung himself carefully down into it and slowly disappeared.
A moment later they heard his voice.
"A rope," he demanded. "Here is one who is, at least, warm."
They passed down a rope carefully. Aylmer's heart became suddenlyaudible to himself. What would appear; what had Fate still in store forhim?
Again the quartermaster's voice echoed from the darkness withdirections. The sailors bent their backs and hauled.
A face appeared in the opening, travelling upwards.
Aylmer felt no surprise. This was the expected, the inevitable. Landonwas dragged out into the day--Landon--alive.
They laid him silently at his cousin's feet.
And as Aylmer looked down he felt a thrill of what must have been nearlyakin to sympathy. God help the mutilated wretch!
His arms hung beside him limp and helpless, the fractured bonesdistorted in hideous angles. There were marks as of burns upon his face.But the supreme horror was in the sockets which held nothingrecognizable as human eyes. Coals might have lain within them--coalspressed down to find their quenching there.
He moaned ceaselessly, swinging himself from side to side. And thenwords came slowly, piteously, one by one.
"Oil!" he gasped. "For God's sake, a little oil--upon my eyes!"
Sigismondi shuddered. Then he bent and placed his hand compassionatelyon the scarred temple.
"As soon as it can be found, my brother," he said. "Try to keep yourcourage while we do our utmost. We have to carry you--where you can betreated."
The tortured wretch moaned again and made an instinctive effort to raisea hand to his face. He shrieked as the shattered bones failed him,shrieked and cursed in hideous blasphemies. His brain began to wanderupon the border-line of delirium.
"Hours--days--weeks," he wailed. "Broken--broken! Immovable and alwaysin agony--burning--my eyes--my eyes! And the rain--running over themand bringing more agony--and more--and more. And unable to move afinger. My feet hanging in emptiness--my hands crushed in uponme--crushed--crushed--crushed!"
The quartermaster made a gesture of infinite compassion.
"The room had been newly plastered, do you see?" he whispered. "He wascaught bodily--in the closing of the walls--as a nutcracker closes. Andhe was held and crushed--like the nut. The lime was deep upon hisface--and when the rain came, washing it in--eating him--" He turnedaway with another pregnant motion of his hands, as if he put from himthe picture which imagination conjured up.
Aylmer leaned down and spoke.
"We are going to take you from
here," he said. "We are going to liftyou. 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 himselfto and fro; he made as if he would beat his broken hands upon thestones.
"God! If they'd suffered alongside me, if they'd been there, if they hadgiven me groan for groan, I could have stood it--enjoyed it--damn them,I could have laughed with the lime in my eyes, if they'd been there--ifthey'd been there!"
He jerked himself to a sitting posture; he writhed backwards andforwards. 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 beneathLandon's shoulders. The quartermaster lifted his knees.
Landon struggled in their arms.
"Let me be!" he cried. "Let me stand. Damn you, let me stand upon my ownfeet!"
They hesitated. Then with a shrug the quartermaster laid down hisburden.
"This is no place for a blind man to pick his way," he remonstrated. "Toget down, Monsieur, you have to poise yourself along the wall thirtyfeet above the square."
Landon stood panting and leaning against his cousin. The spasms of agonywere convulsing his face.
"I will not be carried," he panted. "I'll walk upon my feet--like aman."
They looked at each other, hesitating.
"But your arms?" protested Aylmer. "Your arms?"
The breath hissed between Landon's teeth.
"My arms!" he repeated. "God! If I'd my arms! You--you must leadme--carefully--carefully. Put your hand upon my shoulder; keepclose--close."
For a dozen yards he tottered along, and the sweat broke out astreamupon his scars. And then he halted, and stumbled.
The quartermaster instinctively put a hand upon one of the brokenwrists. 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 ahand. But it was not Landon's sleeve which it reached, butAylmer's--reached and gripped it while the two bodies reeled upon thecrumbling edge and sent the flying blocks down to break into powder uponthe solid flags below.
And then, where two had struggled, one alone remained and clung. Landonhad 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, asif Nature flung a veil between herself and the handiwork of herpassions. Through it the launch of the _Diomede_ threaded the network ofthe shipping.
Warmly red against the ghost-like paintwork, the ports of _The MorningStar_ beamed up out of the smother. Aylmer held up his hand. Silently,with stopped engines, the boat slid up to the accommodation ladder, andas silently Aylmer swung himself aboard.
With a gesture of farewell to the boat's crew and one of greeting to thesailor at the gangway head, he passed into the companion and went below.In the doorway of the saloon he halted.
Two figures sat at the table, a picture book open before them. Claire'sarm was about her little nephew's shoulder. His face was turned up tohers, but his finger still pointed to the page which they had beenstudying.
"And was he brave, enormously brave?" he was asking. "As brave as--asMuhammed?"
"Braver than Muhammed," she said quietly. "Because he was--good."
He debated a moment.
"As brave as the pig man, then?" he suggested. "He's been good, always?"
Aylmer stepped forward.
"Not always," he said smiling. "Not even often. But just as much as heknew how to be."
The glances which met his were startled but full of welcome. With acackle of delight little John ran from his seat.
"It's him, himself--the pig man!" he cried.
Aylmer smiled and held out his hand.
Then he turned.
In Claire's eyes the surprise had vanished. They were full of inquiry,of an agony of question. Her lips were pale and faltered over the wordswhich would not come.
He nodded, gravely, significantly.
She gave a little gasp. The color rushed to her cheeks, flooded to herbrow. As if some strong chord of tension had broken in her breast, sheleaned against the table, quivering.
"Yes," said Aylmer, quietly. "That shadow is lifted from our lives. Heis gone--God's hand fell upon him--as you told him it would. The futureof this life," he laid his fingers tenderly upon the child's head, "isin your hands now." He paused. "And my life, Claire--that is yours, too,to deal with, as you will."
She lifted her head.
The wave of emotion had passed and left her calm again. The haggardness,the anxious lines, were smoothed. Only in her eyes remained the mist ofunshed tears. And as the mist sinks from the face of the risen sun, sothe shadow of passed sorrow fled before her dawning smile. Slowly shecame towards him.
With a sigh of infinite content her hands reached out to--and placedtheir surrender in--his.
* * * * *
By E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM
THE ILLUSTRIOUS PRINCE
Mr. Oppenheim's new story is a narrative of mystery and internationalintrigue that carries the reader breathless from page to page. It is thetale of the secret and world-startling methods employed by the Emperorof Japan through Prince Maiyo, his close kinsman, to ascertain the realreasons for the around-the-world cruise of the American fleet. TheAmerican Ambassador in London and the Duke of Denvenham, an influentialEnglishman, work hand in hand to circumvent the Oriental plot, whichproceeds mysteriously to the last page. From the time when Mr. HamiltonFynes steps from the _Lusitania_ into a special tug, in his mad rushtowards London, to the very end, the reader is carried from deep mysteryto tense situations, until finally the explanation is reached in a mostunexpected and unusual climax.
No man of this generation has so much facility of expression, so manytechnical resources, or so fine a power of narration as Mr. E. PhillipsOppenheim.--_Philadelphia Inquirer._
Mr. Oppenheim is a past master of the art of constructing ingeniousplots and weaving them around attractive characters.--_London MorningPost._
By ANTHONY PARTRIDGE
The Author of "The Kingdom of Earth"
PASSERS-BY
This new novel by Anthony Partridge, whose absorbing romance, "TheKingdom of Earth," met with instant favor, has London for its scene. Butwhen you have read it you will admit that real London, as well asimaginary Bergeland, is a source of fascinating romance.
The heroine of "Passers-By" is a street singer, Christine, who comes toLondon accompanied by Ambrose Drake, a hunchback, with a piano and amonkey. The fortunes of these two are strangely linked with those of anEnglish statesman, the Marquis of Ellingham, who in his youth has led awild and criminal career in Paris as the leader of a band of thieves andgamblers, the Black Foxes. Here is the material for a thrilling tale inwhich mystery breeds adventure and culminates in love.
The first chapter plunges the reader into an interest-compelling maze ofevents, and the attention is held to the end by a series of dramaticsituat
ions and surprises.
Mr. Partridge is now reckoned among the favorite novelists of the day.His first book was "The Distributors," the story of a great Londonmystery. Then came "The Kingdom of Earth," one of the popular novels of1909. "Passers-By" is his third book.
_By_ JOHN IRONSIDE
THE RED SYMBOL
_A Swiftly Moving Mystery Story_
Here is a tale of love, mystery, and adventure, that opens with a rushand holds the interest unflagging to the end. If you like a stirringlove story, prepare to be fascinated by the charming but bafflingheroine; if you enjoy an absorbing mystery, be ready to cudgel yourbrains over a perplexing one; if you care for adventures that thrill,follow Maurice Wynn through the mad whirl of events that befall him whenhe goes to Russia and becomes involved with a secret society ofNihilists. Better yet, if you're fond of a rattling good yarn, one whichcombines all three elements, love, mystery, and action, in just theright proportions, take up "The Red Symbol," and when you have turnedthe last page, with nerves all tingling, you will regret that you're notjust starting.
This swiftly moving narrative promises to be one of the most popularnovels of 1910.
By MRS. CHARLES N. CREWDSON
AN AMERICAN BABY ABROAD
When the American baby's mother hurries off from London to Egypt, whereher husband is ill with fever, the baby, in company with its colorednurse and a friend of its mother's, follows more leisurely. The triostop at Oberammergau to see the Passion Play, in Rome to witness aspecial mass conducted by Pope Leo,--in a word, do more or lesssightseeing, until they finally reach Cairo, where much more excitingevents befall them. The description of the places they visit is enhancedby a pleasant vein of humor, and an attractive love episode sustains theinterest. It is an extremely entertaining story, light and vivacious,with brisk dialogue and diverting situations--just the book for summerreading.
A series of characteristic pictures, by the well-known artist, Mr. R. F.Outcault, and Modest Stein gives additional charm to the volume.