"I know the international code," he said simply. He looked down at Aylmer again. "His escapade has not improved our position," he added. "When Landon comes to himself—"
"He is not seriously wounded, then?" she cried in quick disappointment. "I had hoped—I had prayed—"
"What?" he asked, as she hesitated.
"That he had been killed," she answered slowly. "Is there any escape from the net of villainy in which he has us all entrapped?"
He looked at her silently, and the dawn of a hard smile glimmered about his lips. He pointed aft.
"Will you come and look?" he said. "Perhaps I have undervalued your prayers. I am no surgeon, but I would wager a larger sum on his reviving than I would on the recovery of—this."
He touched Aylmer with the point of his foot. There was no ungentleness in the action, but it seemed instinctive—the gesture of an autocrat or of a dictator, seeing all men under his feet.
She gave a gesture of assent and followed him into the gloom cast by the sail upon the stern. Landon lay within a foot of where he had fallen, his head pillowed upon a tarpaulin. Muhammed had relinquished the tiller to Captain Luigi and was dropping aguardiente between the set lips and the color was stealing slowly back into the cheeks which had been as pale as Aylmer's own. Landon's eyes opened as Claire reached and stood beside him.
They met hers at first without recognition. Then a gleam of feeling flashed in them—a gleam which grew in fierceness as he gazed.
"I remember!" he muttered. He made a feeble effort to rise, which Muhammed prevented by the steady pressure of a hand. "By the Lord, he shall pay for it—and you!"