Landon's voice rang hollow in the underground echoes.
"Is it no, still, you fool?" he snarled.
There was no answer.
With a curse, Landon made a significant motion of the hand. The brawny Arab shoulders were bent and their thews tightened. The great slab slid into its appointed place.
CHAPTER XV
PERINAUD'S NEWS
A full mile out in the offing The Morning Star swung at her anchorage, dipping and swerving lazily over the incoming rush of the Atlantic swell. The dawn-light was soft behind the white bastions of the town's sea-wall; the harsh glare of the fully risen sun was yet to come. A little boat put out from the shore, zigzagging across the wide lake which is bounded on the south by the headland and on the north and west by the ring of transports, merchantmen, and cuirassés of the French Marine. She tacked and came about at short intervals as if those who sailed her had need of haste, or at any rate of the distraction of attempting speed even if it could not be attained. She sidled, at last, towards the yacht's companion ladder.
Claire Van Arlen rose from her deck chair as the boat's sail dropped. She walked towards the taffrail and looked down. She had used her binoculars upon the little craft ever since its start from the shore, and had finally recognized Daoud. His companion, a uniformed man, whose long limbs seemed to occupy the whole of the space between stern and stem, had his head swathed in bandages.
Daoud was the first to scramble aboard. He stood before her with bent shoulders, the picture of dejection.