Frank Savile

“ Aylmer made a motion of his head towards Miller.
"You sent this man to bargain with me?" he said.
"No," said Landon. "I sent him to tell you my terms."
He laughed; he looked Aylmer insolently in the face and laughed again.
"The thick-headedness of you is what amuses me," he said. "The crass incapability of understanding your own case. Order, respectability, good feeling, as you call it—these have been propping you all your life. You don't understand—how should you?—what it is to be in the hands of a man who gives not a jot for any one of them." ”

“ The crimson light flared down into the empty lake basin, reflected back luridly from the rocks. A small, fine rain of soot, gray and woolly, began to fall; it got into our eyes and nostrils, and set us sneezing and winking prodigiously. Then in trembling and with hopelessness in our hearts we climbed the slopes to the cliff-tops, filled with desolation in that the earth having turned traitor, we had but the sea to look to. How vainly we might look and how long we knew but too well.
The red glow wavered upon crestless surges that moved slowly upon the crags. ”

“ Fate was relentless, she told herself, was cruel beyond even her darkest anticipations. For now her one support was to be denied her; she was to be left alone. She set her lips grimly. No, she would never see Aylmer again, but she would defy Fate! She was to be crushed, but she would go down fighting; she would be worthy of herself—and of him.
The vagrant shaft of moonlight was gone again; the darkness was well-nigh impenetrable. The rope swung between her fingers unstraining. The minutes passed one by one; the tension of expectancy plucked at her nerves ”

“ Action was born only too rapidly from reflection. We had seen them off that very morning.
So there sat we in the desolation of a mere club, disconsolate amid the roar of the city, while the sunset became the twilight, the shadows of the lamp-posts lengthened, and darkness fell upon the town even as upon our hearts. And out of the plenitude of my regret I failed to find the word of sympathetic comfort for Gerry.
Lost in our heavy-hearted musings, it was past eight when we realized that food was yet a distasteful necessity of existence, and sought the club dinner. ”

“ A growing dimness was clouding Muhammed's eyes. The quick pant of his breathing weakened as they watched. But a flash of feeling illuminated the pallid features as the Moor's glance reached and dwelled upon Aylmer'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 then knelt beside the dying man.
"The child is well," he answered gravely. "Yourself? Is there no message to give, no delivery of your soul you wish to make? Time is short for you. ”

“ In this hollow they were only covered by a shallow of the mighty river of ice, and it had rolled its slow current over them for centuries. But lying, as they did, beneath its sluggish current, they had remained flung up as in a sort of backwater, and free from injury. And here lay the wonder of the thing. For carved on these great monoliths were a hundred cabalistic figures in myriad combinations, every one, as we could clearly trace, formed of the same symbol that figured in my wonderful scroll.
When you are beaten, the grace of a neat surrender will turn tongues from your defeat. ”

“ Captain Luigi, completely unnerved by the sudden crisis to which events had soared, wailed protests without attempting interference.
"I call you to witness that I said he had the evil eye!" he cried. "I call you to witness! Capture or destruction—there are no two ways to it!"
"There is One God and one road to safety for a brave man," answered Muhammed, as he leaned his strength upon the helm. "They call it courage. Run out the French flag, amigo! They dare not fire on that, here, in debatable waters, for all their claim to these islands as within the grip of Spain." ”

“ Every soul on board stood out in a clearness like the day. Against the mast stood Gerry, one arm round it, one round Vi’s waist, while before the two of them Garlicke and Lessaution had sprung, facing sternly the hill of death, jealously valiant in their pride of race. To the left Janson and Denvarre still held the rail, staring aft with wide, fascinated eyes. Waller and Rafferty at the wheel stood expectant, their shoulders squared to meet and give to the coming shock. The crew, distributed here and there in two and threes, were bracing themselves against the deck-house, mast, or funnel. ”

“ Then he straightened himself and gave an exclamation.
Landon was ready. He drew a revolver from his pocket; he held it by the muzzle. And the butt came down with business-like vigor on Aylmer's temple. He seemed to crumple up rather than fall. He slid against the bookcase to the floor.
The dawn was breaking before, confusedly, achingly, consciousness wavered back to him again—the same dawn which saw a Spanish steamer drop anchor in Tangier's roads and Landon, with a satisfied smile, swing down the ladder into the boat which was to take him ashore. ”

“ As he hesitated, now looking lakeward, now peering up to us, another crash resounded from the mountain. Like the tearing of a sheet of paper the glacier cañon split further shoreward, and opened beneath his very feet. Half his bulk rolled into the cleft thus riven; his tail and one hind limb disappeared. Slipping and spurring frantically he managed to support himself on his huge elbows, but lost ground with every rock of the shuddering earth. The cleft yawned, then half closed again. Thus as in a vice he was held, his leg and tail mangled in the nip of the fissure. ”

“ And we shall, at any rate, have defied Fate to the end."
"Yes," he said. "In that I am with you; we will do our best—to the last. And if God's purpose falls upon us quickly, Claire, I thank Him here and now that He has permitted me to share this bitter cup with you, instead of draining that more bitter one which threatened an hour ago. At least I am not leaving you in Landon's hands, alone."
"And I am not helpless while they work their vile wills upon you," she answered. "Fate has been cruel enough, but she has spared us that. The end? That is still her mystery. ”

“ Oily and crestless billows rippled and webbed across it in festoons. The lurid reflections gleamed upon it like the flicker of swords ashock. In a majesty of resistless might it hung over us—a doom unavertable.
As the first slope of the hill of waters slid beneath our keel I tore myself from my trance of fascination. I dashed forward and raised Lady Delahay. With a kick I burst open the door of the companion and thrust her through, turning desperately for Gwen. With the lurch of the rising deck I staggered, slipped, and fell backward. ”

“ Aylmer's first impulse was to use the whole of his tethered strength in bringing consciousness back to the child—to what was, he considered, his only chance of freedom. A moment later chance pointed a quicker road. His knuckles met and were scarred by the frayed edge of the tin. He gave an exclamation of impatience at his own dulness. What would cut him would cut his bonds. Crouching down he managed to grip the slipper between his knees and steady it there. And then he rasped his lashings upon its edge.
A minute sufficed, or even less. ”

“ The roar of it slammed across the hollow ponderously, the 243splinters scattering on the hard flooring of the lake bed, shooting out and across the smooth granite in a thousand chips of glancing, flashing crystal. The sun glistened upon them gloriously in many-hued, rainbow rays. Behind us a great pinnacle of basalt was flung from the peak, falling on the glacier with the crash of an artillery salute. A moan trembled out from the vitals of the riven glacier, as if from a prisoned soul within. The impulse of the crushed ice billowed out a dark spate of water at its foot. ”

“ It was Landon who held a guttering lamp in his hand and looked down at them complacently—Landon, debonair, smiling, triumphant.
Aylmer's eyes searched past him after the first glance of surprise. Touching his feet lay Miss Van Arlen, bound as he had been bound, the mark of the gag still grooving her lips and cheek. Beyond her, propped against a bulkhead at the end of the narrow oblong lazaret in which they all lay, was another figure. Aylmer blinked and frowned in his surprise. The face was unfamiliarly pale; the usually apathetic eyes dark with repressed emotion. ”

“ For I had realized only too well that the great smoke pall that overhung us and made long the night was Death’s Shadow indeed.
272As the dawn began to filter in under the fog of dust, I woke and strode out to see how fared the world of fire and ice. A great hush had fallen with the livid morning light. The thunderous boom of the crater had ceased, and from above came only the distant purr and simmer of undying fires. The boil and roar of active eruption had died down. The great smoke curtain stretched away in a long wreath inland, carried before the cool sea breeze. ”

“ They turned towards her as another rider, as yet unseen, cantered round a thicket of broom in the same direction.
The handkerchief was waved excitedly and the canter became a gallop.
The mimosa crashed; the sun-dried lop of wild olive was splintered. Something dark, unwieldy, menacing, burst out of the undergrowth with a speed which seemed preposterously out of proportion to its bulk. It fled across the interval of sand which lay between the strip of forest behind it and the one from which Aylmer and Rattier had just emerged. Emotion perforated the latter's imperturbability. ”

“ The water completely hid any moraine there might have been before the irruption of the whelming wave. Between us and the tops of the sea-cliffs was a narrow strand of rock, covered with the silt of the retreating waters. Among the litter the bodies of one or two sea-lions and seals were visible, their fur shining wet and glossy in the light of the rising sun. On the shore beneath the far cliff a whale was stranded, thwacking his huge tail resoundingly upon the boulders as he vainly tried to thrust himself back into his native element. ”

“ Two men sat in the shadow cast by a stranded boat and watched half a dozen Moors and Spaniards who bent their shoulders and swelled out their muscles to haul at a couple of ropes. The ropes slanted down to and were lost in the rush of the breakers. Those who dragged at them panted, the perspiration raining off their faces. The men who sat and watched seemed to find a whet to the enjoyment of their siesta in reviewing so much energy. One of them sighed—a contented little sigh, drew a cigarette from the breast of his djelab, lit it, and began to smoke with stolid satisfaction. ”