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.