“marguerite, you must go to bed,” said paul. “i’ll rouse you if there’s any danger.”
it was very near to the dawn now. there was a freshness and an expectation in the air; a faint colourless light was invading the darkness; in the patch of sky above their heads the bright stars were swooning. for most of this last half hour marguerite’s head had lain heavy upon his shoulder, and if she opened her eyes it was only to close them again with a sigh of content. paul lifted her on to her feet and led her up the stairs.
“and you, paul?” she asked, drowsily.
“i shall be within call. i shall sleep for a little on the cushions below. good-night.”
marguerite noticed that the voice of the last mueddin ceased whilst she was still preparing herself for her bed; and after she had got into it, she heard a kettle singing cheerfully in the court below as if paul were brewing for himself some tea. then, with the doors of her bedroom open upon the little gallery above the court she went fast asleep.
hours afterwards a shattering noise awakened her. she lay for a few moments deliciously poised between sleep and consciousness, and vaguely thinking her long and troubled vigil to have been a nightmare which the light of day had happily dispelled. the sunlight was falling in a sheet of gold through the open roof. “it must be very late,” she reflected, lazily, and thereupon sharply and crisply two shots from a rifle split the air. marguerite sprang up in her bed with a hand to her heart, as though one of those shots had wounded her. it was just the same noise which had broken through her slumbers. the nightmare was true, then! she listened, resting upon one arm, with her face turned towards the open doors. a clamour of voices was borne from a distance to her ears. the new terror had begun.
“paul!” she cried loudly. “paul”; and a tall man dressed in the robes of a moor stood beside her bed. she shrank away with a little scream. it was not until he smiled that she recognized her lover.
“you had better get up, marguerite,” he said, and bending down he kissed her. “you have slept well, thank the lord.”
one of the negresses brought her a cup of tea and marguerite, slipping on her dressing gown, sat upon the edge of the bed and thrust her feet into her slippers.
“what is the time, paul?”
“a little past one.”
“so late?”
“i let you sleep. there was no disturbance. the first shot waked you.”
“i will be quick,” she said, or rather began to say. for the words, half-uttered, were frozen upon her lips. such a din, so shrill, so menacing and strange, burst out above their heads that marguerite cowered down under it as under the threat of a blow. she had never heard the like of it, she hoped never to hear the like of it again; yet she was to hear it now for days—the swift repetition of one strident note, swelling and falling in a p?an of wild inhuman triumph. marguerite imagined all the birds of prey in the world wheeling and screaming above the city; or a thousand thin voices shrieking in a madhouse; you—you—you—you—you—the piercing clamour ran swift as the clacking of a mitrailleuse, and with a horrid ferocity which made the girl’s blood run cold.
“paul,” she said, “what is it?”
“the women on the roofs.”
“oh!”
marguerite shuddered as she listened, clutching tight her lover’s arm. such a promise of cruelty was in those shrill cries as made marguerite think of the little automatic pistol in the drawer of her table as a talisman which she must henceforth carry close to her hand. she felt that even if she escaped from the peril of these days, she could never walk again in the narrow streets between the blind houses without the chill of a great fear. her clasp tightened upon her lover’s arm and he winced sharply. marguerite looked up into his face, and saw that his lips were pressed close together to prevent a cry of pain.
“paul!” she said wonderingly. she loosened her clasp and turned back the sleeve of his djellaba. beneath it, his forearm was roughly but tightly bandaged. “oh, my dear,” she cried, in a voice of compunction, “what happened to you whilst i slept? you are wounded—and for me! must i always do you harm?” and she beat her hands together in her distress.
“it was an accident,” said paul.
“an accident?”
she ran to her medicine-chest, and making him sit beside her, unfastened the bandage. “an accident?” she repeated. it looked to her as if he had been stabbed. a knife had been driven right through the flesh of his forearm. paul did not reply to her exclamations and she did not press her questions. she washed and dressed the wound and bound it up again.
“it must hurt terribly,” she said, her forehead knitted in distress.
“it is easier now,” he answered. “the knife was clean.”
“you are sure of that, paul?”
“quite.”
she made a sling of his arm and sent him away. she dressed quickly, wondering how that wound had been inflicted and why he wished not to explain it. surely he had not gone out whilst she slept? surely there had been no attack upon the house? no! but she was plunged now into a world of mystery and fear, and she wrung her hands in an impotent despair.
they took their breakfast in a room upon the first floor, paul asking questions as to how far the house was provisioned, and marguerite answering almost at random, whilst the cries of the women rang shrill overhead.
“oh, yes, there is food,” she answered.
“we can always send selim out,” he added.
marguerite’s eyes lightened.
“we will send him out, paul,” she exclaimed. “do you know what has been troubling me? we haven’t a window upon any street. we are here at the bottom of a well with nothing but our ears to warn us of danger. we can see nothing.”
paul looked at her anxiously. she was nervous, the flutter of her hands feverish, and her voice running up and down the scale as though she had no control over it. paul reached across the table and laid his hand upon her arm.
“you poor little girl!” he said gently. “these are trying days. but there won’t be many. the wireless here will have got into touch already with moinier’s column near meknes. the troops, too, at dar-debibagh may do something,” and ever so slightly his voice faltered when he spoke of the troops, yet not so slightly but that marguerite noticed it. “they have some guns,” he went on hurriedly, and again marguerite noticed the hurry, the desire to cover up and hide that little spasm of pain which had stabbed him when he thought of his men. “yes, the guns!” he said. “there will be an end to that infernal twittering on the roof tops when the guns begin to talk.”
“paul, you should have been with your men,” said marguerite, and he answered her with a kind of violent obstinacy which drew her eyes in one swift glance to his face. “i am on leave.”
he changed his tone, however, immediately.
“we will send selim into the town for news,” he said cheerfully, “and we will go up on to the roof.”
selim was bidden to knock twice, and, after a tiny interval, once more upon his return. paul stood behind the door listening to make sure that the tunnel was empty before he opened it. then he let him go, and locked and barred the door again.
“come,” he said to marguerite and, picking up some cushions, they went upstairs to the roof. marguerite had followed paul’s example, and was dressed in moorish clothes; the house was higher by a storey than any which adjoined it, and the roof itself was enclosed in a parapet waist-high. they crouched upon the cushions behind the wall and cautiously looked over it.
a pack of clouds was threatening in the west, but just now the city glittered in the sunlight like a jewel, with its hanging gardens and high terraces, its white houses huddling down the hillside like a flock of sheep, and the bright green tiles of its mosques. paul and marguerite never tired of this aspect of the lovely city, shut within its old crumbling walls and musical with the rushing noise of its many rivers. but to-day they saw it as they had never seen it before. for the roofs were crowded with women in their coloured robes of gauze and bright scarves, who danced and screamed, and climbed from one house to another on little ladders in such a frenzy of excitement that the eyes were dazzled and the ears deafened. paul turned towards the north. upon the roof of one house men were breaking through with axes and picks, whilst others flung down rags and sticks which had been soaked in paraffin and lighted, through the holes into the rooms below.
“i think that’s the house of the french veterinary surgeon,” said paul; and from all about that house rose a continuous rattle of firing.
“look!” said paul, and he nodded to the south. here there was a gap between the houses, and marguerite could see far below a tumble-down stone bridge built in a steep arch across a stream. as she looked, a wild horde of men swarmed upon the bridge, capering and yelling.
“there are soldiers amongst them,” said marguerite. “i can see their rifles and their bandoliers.”
“yes, the askris who have revolted,” answered paul, and suddenly he covered marguerite’s eyes with the palm of his hand. “don’t look!” but marguerite had already seen, and she sank down behind the parapet with a moan. in the midst of that wild procession some rifles with bayonets fixed were held aloft, and on one of the bayonets the trunk and the limbs of a man were impaled. the head was carried last of all, and upon a pole taller than the bayonets, a head black with blood, like a negro’s, on which a gold-laced kêpi was derisively cocked.
paul swore underneath his breath.
“one of my brothers,” he whispered. “oh, my god,” and dropping his head into his hands, he rocked his body to and fro in an agony of remorse.
marguerite touched him on the shoulder.
“paul, there’s a carbine in your room.”
“it would be fatal to use it.”
“i don’t care,” marguerite cried fiercely. her face was alive with passion. “use it, paul. i don’t care!” and from far below there rose the sound of a loud knocking upon a door.
marguerite’s heart fluttered up into her throat. she stared at paul with her eyes opened wide in horror. the same thought was in both their minds. both listened, holding their breath that they might hear the better.
“it was upon our door they knocked,” marguerite whispered, and she crept a little closer to her lover.
“listen!” replied paul, and as the knocking began again, but this time louder, he added with a grim look upon his face, “yes.”
“and it was not selim who knocked,” said marguerite.
they could hear cries now, angry orders to open, followed by a muffled clamour and such a clatter of heavy blows as shook the very house.
“i must go down,” said paul, in a low voice. “otherwise they’ll break in the door.”
marguerite nodded. her face was white to the lips, but she was quite still now and her eyes steady. they crept down to the uppermost floor of the house. the noise was louder.
“you will stay here, marguerite?”
“yes.”
“you have your pistol?”
marguerite drew it from her broad waistbelt of gold brocade, snapped back the barrel, and set the safety catch. her hand never shook. now that the peril was at her elbow she could even smile. paul took her passionately in his arms.
“you are gold all through, marguerite,” he cried. “if this is the end, i thank you a thousand times. i would hate to have died without knowing the wonder of such rare love as yours.”
“?‘we two embracing under death’s spread hand.’?” she quoted from a book upon her shelf in which she was pleased to find a whole library of wisdom and inspiration.
“you will wait until the last moment?” said paul, touching the little automatic in her hand.
“until they are on this last flight of stairs,” she replied, in an even voice. “paul!” she clung to him for a second, not in terror, but as to some inestimable treasure which she could hardly let go. then she stood away, her eyes shining like the dew, her face hallowed with tenderness. “now, my dear, go!”
paul ravenel ran down the stairs. the clamour echoing from the tunnel had taken on a fiercer note; the door, stout as it was, bent inwards under the blows. marguerite, standing upon the landing, heard him unbolt the door. she drew back out of sight as a crowd of men, some in djellabas spotted with blood, some in ragged caftans, some armed with rifles, others with curved knives, others, again, with sharpened poles, swept screaming like madmen over the court.
“the frenchman,” cried a great fellow, brandishing a butcher’s cleaver. “give him to us! god has willed that they shall all die this day.”
what had become of paul? she wondered. had he been swept off his feet and trampled down in the rush? she heard his voice above the clamour. she imagined him standing with uplifted hand claiming silence. at all events, silence followed, and then his voice rang out.
“god willed that he should die yesterday,” said paul.
marguerite peered out between the curtains which overhung the entrance to the room. she saw him move, calm and smiling, across the court to an alcove and point to a corner.
“the frenchman came to my house once too often. look! he sought refuge here last night. he was not wise to seek refuge in the house of ben sedira the meknasi. for to-day his body rolls in the river—” paul threw open a small door in the back wall and showed them the karouein river tumbling, swollen with the rain, past the walls of his house. then he pointed to the alcove: “and his livery lies there.”
there was a rush into the alcove, and the shouts of exultation broke out again. a blue tunic, on the breast of which medals glinted and rattled, was tossed out high amidst the throng. the tunic was gashed and all cluttered and stained with blood which had dried. paul’s gold-lace cap spun through the air, was caught, and clapped upon the head of a boy, his breeches and boots and accoutrements were flung from hand to hand and shared out amidst laughter and cheering. and once more there was a surge of men, and the court was empty and silent. no, not quite empty. paul was talking in a gentle voice to one wild man who was now wearing over a ragged caftan paul’s uniform tunic. paul held him firmly by the elbow, and was speaking in a curiously soft, smooth voice, than which marguerite had never heard anything more menacing.
“you will leave that tunic, good friend. you will take it off at once and leave it here. it is my trophy. have i not earned it?”
the man protested, and sought to disengage himself, but paul still held him firmly.
“it shall hang in my house,” he continued, “that my children may remember how once there were frenchmen befouling the holy ground of morocco.”
once more marguerite heard the rattle of the medals as the coat was restored, and the moor cried out: “there will be none alive in fez this night. salam aleikum, o man of meknes!” and a little afterwards the door was slammed and barred.
paul returned to the court, holding the tunic in his hands. the peril of the last few moments was swept altogether out of his mind. for a moment marguerite herself was forgotten. he was holding the badge of many years of honourable service, and the shining medals which proved that the service had been of real value to the country he served. all was now wasted and foregone.
“i should make the sacrifice again,” he said obstinately to himself, “if it were to make again. i should! i should!”
but he had not borne to see the tunic and its medals paraded in triumph on the back of one of these assassins through the streets of fez. when he stopped the moor and held him back from his companions, his hand had gripped close the revolver hidden in his waistband. had the man clung to the tunic, paul would have killed, whatever the risk. the traditions and the whole training of his life had forced his hand. he knew that, as he stood in the silent sunlit patio fondling the stuff of the coat between his fingers, and his heart aching as though some little snake had slipped into his bosom and was feeding there.
“i have done what my father did,” he thought. “i, who set out to atone for him.” and he laughed aloud with so much mockery at his own pretensions that the laughter startled him. “i can plead a different reason. but what of that? i have done what my father did!”
he folded the tunic reverently, and laid it down again in the alcove. as he stood up he was startled by the clatter of something falling overhead and the sharp explosion of a pistol. he looked upwards. the sound had come from behind those curtains where marguerite was hidden. had she been watching? had she seen him fondling the tunic? had she heard his bitter laughter? perhaps he had spoken aloud. for a moment his heart stood still. some words that henriette had said to him—oh, ever so long ago, in the villa iris, flashed back into his mind. “even if the grand passion comes—oh la, la la!—she will blow her brains out, the little fool!”
he sprang up the stairs, crying “marguerite! marguerite!” and stumbling in his haste. no answer was returned to him. he tore the curtains aside, and saw her lying on the floor by the side of a divan. the pistol had slipped from her hand and fallen a little way from her. paul flung himself upon his knees beside her, lifted her, and pressed her close to his heart. “marguerite! marguerite!” he whispered. there was no wound, and she was breathing, and in a moment or two her eyes opened. paul understood in that supreme moment of relief how greatly his love of marguerite overpowered his grief at honour lost.
“oh, my dear, you frightened me!” he said.
she smiled as he lifted her onto the divan.
“i was foolish,” she answered.
she had waited upon the outcome of that wild scene in the court below, her nerves steady, her mind unconscious of any effort to steel herself against catastrophe. she could catch but a glimpse of what was going forward; she did not understand the trick by which paul ravenel had appeased the invaders; she heard the wild babble of their frenzied voices and paul’s voice over-topping them. she had waited serenely with her little pistol in her hand, safety to be reached so easily by the mere pressure of a finger. then suddenly all was over; the court was empty, the house which had rung with fury a moment since was silent; and as she heard the bolts of the door shot once more into their sockets her strength had melted away. she had stood for a little while in a daze and, catching at the divan as she fell, had slipped in a swoon to the floor. the pistol fell from her hand and exploded as it fell.
“i was foolish,” she repeated; “i didn’t understand what had happened. i don’t even now.”
“i was afraid that some time or another some one had seen me enter this house and remembered it,” paul ravenel explained. “last night something happened outside the door—what, i don’t know, but enough to trouble me a little. so after you had gone to bed i boiled a kettle—”
“yes, i heard it.”
“and sterilized my big knife. i drove the knife through my arm and let the blood soak through my tunic, and then i stabbed the tunic again in the back. it was lucky that i did.”
“what should i have done without you?” she said, as she rested upon the cushions of the divan. she laid a hand gently in his.
“does the wound hurt, paul?”
“it throbs a little if i move it. that’s all. it’s nothing.”
“i’ll dress it again to-night,” she said, sleepily, and almost immediately she fell asleep. she slept so deeply, that a muffled roar, which shook the house, did not even trouble her dreams. paul smiled as he heard that sound. “that’s one of the seventy-five,” he reflected. the guns from the camp at dar-debibagh were coming into action.
he left marguerite sleeping, and climbed again to the roof. the guns were firing to the south of the town, and were still far away. but no man who had fought through the chaiou?a campaign could ever forget the tribesmen’s terror of the guns.
“another day or two!”
paul counted up the stages of the march of moinier’s column from meknes. if only he was quick, so that the tribesmen could not mass between him and fez! there were houses alight now in fez-el-bali. the work of massacre was going on. but let general moinier hurry, and the guns over there at dar-debibagh talk insistently to fez! moreover, at five o’clock the rain began again. it fell like javelins, with the thunder of surf upon a beach.
