The cavalcade of horsemen swept along a level plain of beach and from there turned aside to gain the broom-covered slope which led towards the cliff top. The white column of the lighthouse, which had been their guide heretofore, disappeared behind the shoulder of the ascent. It was no more than a couple of miles away. The riders spurred their horses up the steep, Aylmer and Van Arlen leading. The edge of their anxieties grew blunter as they neared their goal. They might be in time to meet and safeguard those they sought before they left the shelter of Spartel.

As they topped the rise and looked across the undulating stretch of green which lay before them, Daoud, riding behind Aylmer, gave a triumphant shout.

"La bas, alkumdullah!" he cried fervently. "No harm, thanks to God. The lady is even now coming towards us with her party unharmed."

Their eyes followed the direction of his finger. A great sigh of relief broke from Mr. Van Arlen's lips.

A party came slowly towards them, a couple of furlongs distant. Seven or eight were men mounted on barbs, and armed, in spite of prohibitions, with Remington rifles swung across their laps. In front of them, a couple of mules paced doggedly on, carrying two white-clad figures. At their bridles were djelab-clothed youths, whose adjurations of their charges were audible even at that distance, so still was the evening air. Two or three dogs chased each other and supposititious partridges from tuft to tuft.

Van Arlen and Aylmer saw that they were seen, but not recognized. The muleteers halted and cried loudly to the guard. The horsemen looked up, whirled up their rifles with their right hands, and spurred to the front.

Daoud's bull voice stormed the cliff echoes.

"Absalaam—Absalaam ibn Said! Son of foolishness! It is I, Daoud, with Sid' Aylmer and thine employer!"

The rifle muzzles were lowered; the horsemen drew aside, and the two white-clad figures led again. A minute later Aylmer reined in his horse, and raised his helmet at Miss Van Arlen's side. Daoud, with a self-satisfied smile, was understood to explain that owing to his unparalleled management the expedition had resulted in an unprecedented success.

The girl's eyes were raised questioningly, first to her father's face, and then doubtfully, almost, indeed, unwillingly, to Aylmer's. She bowed to him coolly, not ungraciously, but with no effect of welcome. He sat silent, watching as she listened to the explanation which the elder man gave in a rapid undertone.

She made no comment till he finished, but at the first mention of Landon's name she unconsciously, as it seemed, edged her horse in a direction which took her away from Aylmer and closer to her small nephew, who sat on his gray donkey, staring at the newcomers with the frank astonishment of childhood. Aylmer noticed the movement. Was it instinctive maternal impulse which drew her to her charge when she heard that danger threatened him? Or was it antipathy for himself—the antipathy which long prejudice had given her for all who bore her brother-in-law's dishonored name? The shadow of doubt clouded his eyes, but his lips grew hard and resolute. Despard, if he had been there, would have recognized the symptoms. It was with that expression that Aylmer had led his guns into action on Colenso's already forgotten day of blood.

But as Mr. Van Arlen's narrative continued, the girl's features relaxed. She turned and for the second time looked at Aylmer, doubtfully, indeed, but with the doubt of one who reconsiders, whose verdict is shaken by appeal.

"Captain Aylmer has been at considerable trouble to warn us," she said.

Aylmer shook his head.

"No," he said quietly. "The warning I brought you was only part of my obvious duty. Surely you see that?"

There was a queer note of feeling below the restraint in his voice. She recognized it and interest grew in her glance. She looked at him keenly.

"After all, you have put yourself out to assist us in what is solely our own hazard," she protested. But there was something in her look which seemed to put the emphasis of her words awry. Was she hinting that he might have minded his own business, or was she pricking his sense of honor purposely, to judge him out of his own mouth.

"I thought of your hazard, truly enough," he answered slowly. "I was thinking, perhaps more earnestly, of my own and my family's reputation. You forget that if you and your father have a heavy reckoning against my cousin, his own kinsmen, whom I represent, consider that theirs is no lighter."

She considered him gravely.

"No," she answered quietly. "No, I did not get that point of view. I did not even believe it a possible one, amongst Aylmers. There I have to ask your forgiveness."

There was the hint of a smile lurking in her eyes, something that hinted that she exaggerated in saying this and knew it. But there was perfect seriousness in his reply.

"That is taken for granted. And my position in this matter is taken for granted, too?"

She looked at him questioningly again and then at her father. The latter smiled.

"Captain Aylmer has his own grudge against this child's father. He offers us his co-operation."

"And I ask for the friendly treatment of an ally," added Aylmer, quietly.

Her look was still doubtful and, unconsciously, perhaps, she frowned.

"Considering what we already owe you—" she began. He interrupted with a gesture.

"You owe me nothing," he said. "If you reckon profit and loss in your dealings with Aylmers, you have a wide balance against you. All I want is your friendly tolerance, while I pay in instalments."

She still seemed to ponder his proposal, to review it with the interest of a curiosity which has been imperfectly fed.

"What is your ultimate goal, then?" she asked.

He hesitated. A queer glint of passion shone in his eyes to sink into shadow again.

"My goal is the trapping of Landon into an English gaol, for espionage and robbery. Or—" He shrugged his shoulders meaningly.

"Or?"

"Or his death," he said, in very distinct, level tones.

"Ah!" The exclamation came from her almost unconsciously. Her face shone with a sudden alertness, her expression warmed, her eyes grew bright.

"You would not hesitate—at that?" she demanded.

Mr. Van Arlen made a little inarticulate murmur of protest; his hand was stretched towards her with appeal.

She disregarded it. Her eyes were fixed piercingly on Aylmer's face.

He met her glance with matter-of-factness.

"I should not hesitate, if need arose," he said.

She drew a long breath. Her features relaxed.

"Thank you," she said gravely. "Now I know where we stand. And then—that is all?"

This time it was his eyes which held hers with insistence, almost with menacing, she told herself.

"No," he said quietly. "That is—not all. But that, for the present, is enough."

For a moment her heart seemed to halt in its beat, the blood rushed to her face, the pulse of anger which leaped through her gave her a queer sense of choking. For she understood. Incredible, monstrous, as his purpose appeared in the light of her loathing of those who bore his name, she had not misread it. His words? They were possibly nebulous. But his eyes? No. No woman could misunderstand that look. Steadfast, patient, determined—the unswerving gaze of the pioneer who sees the unseen goal with the eye of faith, and sees it won.

She wheeled her mule with a fierce drag of the rein; her spur found its flank and forced it forward. She felt morally stunned by this—this insolence; mere words could not meet it. For the moment she felt herself deprived of weapons by the unexpectedness of the attack.

Her movement set the whole party in motion. Her father reined up to her side. She stole a half glance at his face. There was a queer, partly grim, partly puzzled expression on it, but she read, too, a glint of humor? Her exasperation rose. Her father, even? Had he gone over to the enemy; could she no longer reckon that his support would not crumble from resentment into laughter? Oh, this imperturbable Englishman should pay for this! If there was one shaft of gall left in her woman's armory, he should pay! The insolence of the man—the unparalleled insolence!

Behind her she heard his voice, addressed to Absalaam in trivial inquiry. She felt an overwhelming desire to forestall the answer with indignant words of bitter loathing. His impassibility excited her—the serenity with which he passed back, as it were, to little things after launching such a bomb. She gave a shiver of passion, or, perhaps, fear had its place in her emotion. There was something relentless in his attitude, something uncompromising.

Absalaam's answer was forestalled, but not by her. Little John Aylmer's voice rang out, shrill with the joy of discovery.

"The brown man!" he cried rapturously. "The brown man!"

The other John Aylmer looked up. A couple of men had come into sudden view round a corner of the track. A clump of Spanish broom had hidden their approach; they gave an exclamation of alarm as they met the glances of the riders not thirty yards away.

One Aylmer recognized at once. He was the man of the pier, the would-be kidnapper whose purpose he himself had frustrated at the moment of success.

The other man made a movement to cover his face with the hood of his djelab, but by some apparent unadroitness let it fall further back. And so revealed his identity.

It was Landon—brought to a sudden halt by surprise.

Through a pregnant instant of silence they confronted one another. Then Aylmer spurred forward with a shout.

"Don't let them escape!" he roared. "A hundred dollars to the man who takes him!"

The two fugitives turned and ran desperately down the path, seeking wildly for an opening in the surrounding jungle. Surprise and terror appeared to have dazed them, for they passed several avenues of escape heedlessly, made half-hearted attempts to turn, and still blundered on between the caging walls of green. Aylmer thundered behind them, drawing nearer with every stride. He leaned forward in the saddle; his arm reached out within a yard of Landon's flying draperies; he spurred fiercely into his horse's flanks.

The two men leaped right and left into the green thicket as divers leap into the blue. And in the same instant something rose out of the earth—something thin, snake-like, starting suddenly into being, as it were, from the concealing smother of the dust into a rigid line knee high. Aylmer's horse stumbled, shot forward, and went down heavily. His rider was flung far beyond him, moved spasmodically once, and then lay still. The squadron of charging horsemen were trapped in their turn. Not one escaped. The goad of Aylmer's bribe had sent every man of them charging in the wake of his leadership. The taut-held rope accounted for them all, or for all save one. Absalaam, a consummate horseman, reined in on the brink of disaster, rearing his stallion high into the air.

The road was an inferno of yelling men and blood-stained horses.

The few Moors who were not stunned and incapacitated by their fall had to endure the perils of half a hundred wildly struggling hoofs. Scarcely six out of the score who had thundered so carelessly after their easy quarry fought a way for themselves out of the mÊlÉe unharmed.

And of those six there was not one who did not come to a sudden halt with uplifted fingers as they gained the open road. A revolver barrel was pointed at each man's breast.

Ten or a dozen men had emerged from the thicket. They used no words; their fingers, significantly pressed upon the triggers, were eloquent enough. Only one spoke—Landon, who strolled slowly and panting a little into the circle which the menace of his underlings had formed.

He halted opposite Claire Van Arlen.

"Eh, sister-in-law!" he chuckled smilingly.

Her face was white, but her hand, which gripped the reins, was steady. And her gaze burnt upon his face in loathing and contempt.

"Rather neat?" said Landon, amiably. "I plume myself. My resources were limited, you see. I may congratulate myself upon having used them to the very best advantage."

Still she was silent and still her eyes flung him their message of hate. He gave a pleasant little laugh. He made a significant jerk of the head in the direction of the chaos behind him.

"And the virtuous cousin," he said. "What a fall is there, is there not? A hundred dollars! He actually appraised my poor liberty so high!"

For a moment the expression in her glance changed as she turned it in the direction of the still struggling horses and their riders. He saw it and laughed again.

"You divide your anxieties," he said. "Let me relieve you of one!"

He stretched out his hand and laid it gently upon his son's shoulder. "Are you coming with your father—to ride the black horse upon the sands?" he asked.

The child looked at him debatingly. His face lit up at the question, and then shadowed again as he turned his glance upon the motionless white figure on the mule beside him.

"Auntie won't have it—and Selim," he deplored.

"Won't they?" said Landon, good-humoredly. "I think they will."

He stared up in the girl's face with insolent satisfaction.

"In fact," he went on, "they've got to. Vulgarly, my boy, they may not like it, so they must lump it."

He made a gesture of command.

"Come, my son!" he said, motioning him to dismount.

A tension broke. She lifted up her riding-whip and struck hard at him, struck with the concentrated strength of passion and despair. He leaped aside, but the end of the lash reached him and left a staring weal of red upon his cheek.

He cursed aloud; he made as if he would spring at her.

A warning cry came from behind him; half a dozen revolver shots rang out upon the evening air.

Absalaam, sitting stark upon his stallion, covered by the revolvers which encircled him, had struck his spurs against his horse's flank. The fire in the animal's blood had responded in a great leap forward. Landon wheeled round to see, towering above him, man and horse, looming gigantic against the glare of the sunset. Instinctively, automatically, he threw up the muzzle of his own revolver, and fired full at the Moor's broad chest.

The other bullets flew wide, but that one, so near was the human target, had no room to miss. Absalaam fell limply, heavily from the saddle, fell at his mistress's feet. The horse tore past a dozen restraining hands into liberty.

There was shouting, confusion, the rattle of other shots. And then the voice of the brown djelabed man thundered out high above the uproar.

"In God's name, Sidi, have haste. Four of them have fled into the thicket! God alone knows what help they may bring their fellows and how soon!"

And Landon, who had been flung to his knees in the dust, rose swiftly, without another word snatched his son from the saddle, and led the way into the jungle.

In five short minutes he had come, conquered, and gone. He had won every trick, every trick! Claire passed her hand across her brow as she stared at the huddle of wounded and—she shuddered in agony as the thought thrilled—perchance the dead! What lay within that ring of broken bodies—what? With white lips and fear-brimmed eyes she slipped from her saddle to see.