marguerite drove her two trembling negresses out of the corners into which they had flown when the house was invaded, stood over them while they cooked the dinner, and strictly ordered that it should be served with the proper ceremonies. she dressed herself in her european clothes and with even more, to-night, of the scrupulous daintiness which was habitual to her. paul watched her with a great pride and wonderment.
“how in the world do you know at once what we have to learn?” he asked. “when people are rattled, routine’s the great remedy. just doing the ordinary things at the ordinary hours lifts you along with a sort of assurance that life is going to be as sane to-morrow as it was yesterday. but we have men to watch, and they teach us these things. where do you get them from?”
“from myself,” answered marguerite, with a blush upon her cheeks, which her lover’s praise never failed to provoke. “i had to keep my own little flag of courage flying if i could.”
at half past nine they heard selim’s three knocks upon the outer door, and paul let him in and brought him to marguerite in the room opening on to the patio. he brought with him a budget of black news. a couple of officers had been dragged from their horses and butchered in the streets. an engineer and his wife in fez djedid had been shot down as they sat at their luncheon. there had been an attack upon the h?tel de france, where the managress and a priest had been slain.
“there is a house in the tala quarter,” said paul, “where two veterinary surgeons and two other officers lodged. i saw men breaking through the roof to get at them this afternoon.”
“they escaped, sidi. they let themselves down from a window into an alley. it is believed that they are hiding in a covered drain.”
“and the four french telegraph operators. they, too, occupied a house in the tala.”
selim had no good tidings to tell of them. the door of their house had been forced at midday. throughout the afternoon they had resisted in an upper room, which they had barricaded, firing with what weapons they had until their ammunition was exhausted. at seven in the evening a rescue party had arrived, but only one of them was alive, and he grievously wounded.
“a rescue party!” asked paul, wondering whence that party had come. there was not enough men at the headquarters in the hospital to do more than protect the quarter of the consulates, even if they could do that.
“a battalion from dar-debibagh forced its way into the city at five o’clock this afternoon,” said selim.
paul’s face took life, his eyes kindled. no one knew better than he the difficulties which must have hampered that exploit.
“that was well done,” he cried. “whose battalion?”
the old algerian soldier replied:
“the commandant philipot’s.”
the gladness died out of paul ravenel’s face, and he sat in silence staring at the tiles of the floor. to marguerite it was as though the light of a lamp waned and flickered out. she laid her hand upon his.
“that’s your battalion, paul?”
paul nodded, and whispered “yes,” not trusting his voice over much.
“you should have been with it, my dear. but for me you would have led your company,” she said, remorsefully; and he cried out aloud suddenly in a voice which she had never heard him use before, a voice rough and violent and full of pain.
“i am on leave.”
hearing him, she felt the compunction of one who has carelessly knocked against a throbbing wound. her eyes went swiftly to his face. during these moments paul ravenel was off his guard, and she was looking upon a man in torture.
“the little praslin will be leading my company,” he said, “and leading it just as well as i could have done.” he turned again to selim. “did the battalion have trouble to get through?”
“great trouble, sidi. the commandant tried to come in by the little gate in the aguedal wall and the new gardens of the sultan. but he was attacked by a swarm of men issuing from the segma gate on his left flank and by sharp-shooters on the wall itself in front of him.”
“and we taught them to shoot!” cried paul in exasperation. “the commandant was held up?”
“yes, sidi.”
“what then? he was losing men, and quickly. what did he do?” paul asked impatiently. his own men were under fire. he had got to know, and at once. “out with it, selim. what did the commandant philipot do?”
“he led his battalion down into the bed of the river zitoun,” said selim, and a long “oh!” of admiration and relief from paul welcomed the man?uvre. he spread before his eyes, in mind, an imaginary map of the difficult ground at that southwest corner of the city, outside the walls. pressed hardly upon his left flank, at the mercy of the riflemen on the crest of the high, unscalable wall of the aguedal, commandant philipot, leaving a rear-guard—trust the commandant philipot for that!—had disappeared with his battalion into the earth. paul chuckled as he thought of it—the ingenuity and the audacity, too!
“he made for the bab-el-hadid?” he said.
“yes,” answered selim.
there had been risk, of course, risk of the gravest kind. out of shot, the battalion certainly was—out of shot and out of sight. but, on the other hand, in the deep chasm of the oued zitoun it could not see any more than could its antagonists. if its rear-guard was overwhelmed by the insurgents from the segma gate, if a strong band of tribesmen rode up to the southern lip of the chasm and caught the battalion floundering below amongst the boulders and the swollen river! why, there was an end of that battalion and, for the moment, of the relief of fez. but he had got through—there was the fact. and by no other way and with no smaller risk could he have got through. paul ravenel, watching that unprinted map upon the floor, over which he bent, had no doubt upon that point. a great risk nobly taken for a great end, and adroitly imagined! and with what speed they must have covered that difficult ground!
“well, the little praslin would lead very well,” he said aloud, but with just a hint of effort in his cordiality. “he knows his work.”
“and you are on leave, paul?”
marguerite was watching her lover with startled eyes. but paul noticed neither her look nor the urgent appeal of her voice. he was away with his company in the bed of the oued zitoun, now stumbling over the great stones, now flung down headlong by the rush of the rain-swollen torrent and pressing on again in the hurried march. he sat tracing with his finger on the tiles the convolutions of the river, the point where the battalion must leave its shelter and march through the gardens to the gates—lost to all else. and marguerite, watching him, caught at any reason which could reassure her.
of course, paul was unconsciously expressing the regret of a true soldier that his company had gone upon difficult and hazardous service without him, and a soldier’s interest in a brilliant man?uvre successfully accomplished. his absorption meant no more than that. but—but—his cry, “i am on leave,” startled out of him a challenge, an obstinate defiance, harsh with pain, rang in her ears still, argue as she might. in spite of herself, an appalling suspicion flickered like lightning through her mind and went out—and flickered again.
she heard paul asking questions of selim and selim answering. but she was asking of herself a question which made all other questions of little significance. if her suspicion were true, could his love for her remain? could it live strongly and steadily after so enormous a sacrifice? wouldn’t it die in contempt of himself and hatred of her? if paul ravenel had looked at marguerite lambert at this moment he would have seen the haggard dancing girl of the villa iris, as he had seen her under the grape-vine of the balcony with her seven francs clenched in her hand.
paul, however, was giving his attention to selim. the quarter of the hospitals and the consulates was now thought to be safe, though the moors, uplifted by their success, had planned to attack it that night. an attempt had been made by a company of philipot’s battalion to force the souk-ben-safi and its intricate, narrow streets, but the company had been driven back. a second company had been sent out to capture and hold the bab-el-mahroud, but it was now beleaguered and fighting for its life. another section was at the bab fetouh, in the south of the town, under fire from the small mosque of tamdert. a good many isolated europeans had been rescued from the houses, and brought into the protected quarter, but fez, as a whole, was still in the hands of the insurgents.
at this point paul ravenel broke in with a sharp question.
“you spoke to no one of this house?”
selim shook his head.
“to no one, sidi.”
“to none of the french soldiers? to no friend of the french? you are sure, selim? you are very sure? there were no europeans to be rescued from this house? answer me truthfully!”
never was question more insistently expressed. why?—why?—why? . . . marguerite found herself asking whilst her heart sank. that their secret might still be kept, its sweetness preserved for them? no, that reason was inadequate. why, then? because the danger was over? but it was not over. so much selim had made very clear. the few troops had been withdrawn to the protected quarter of the consulates. the detachments outside were hard put to it. the city of fez was still in the hands of the insurgents. why then? why the eagerness that the french should know nothing of this secret house? oh, there was an answer, dared she but listen to it! an answer with consequences as yet only dimly suspected. if it was the true answer!—marguerite sat stunned. how was she to get away quite by herself that she might think her problem out, without betraying the trouble of her mind to paul?
it was paul himself who made escape easy for her. he dismissed selim and said to marguerite:
“i’ll go up on the roof, my dear, for a little while. the rain has stopped, but, dressed as you are, it wouldn’t be wise for you to come.”
the excuse was feeble, and he spoke looking away from marguerite—a rare thing with him. but marguerite welcomed the excuse and had no eyes for the shifty look of him as he made it.
“very well,” she said, in a dull voice, and paul went quickly up the stairs.
selim’s story had moved him to the depths of his soul. he was conscious of an actual nausea. “i should make the sacrifice again.” he repeated a phrase which had been growing familiar to him during this day, repeated it with a stubborn emphasis. but he was beginning to understand dimly what the sacrifice was to cost him. soldiering was his business in life. he was sealed to it. he had known it when he stood in his father’s death room on the islet off the coast of spain; and when he sat over colonel vanderfelt’s wine in the dining room looking out upon the moonlit garden; but never so completely as now when his thoughts were with the men of his company stumbling in the river bed, and his feet were dragging up the stairs to the roof.
“i must be alone for a little while, otherwise marguerite will guess the truth.”
it was an instinct rather than a formulated thought which drove him upwards. he dreaded marguerite’s swift intuitions, that queer way she had of reaching certainty, cleaving her way to it like a bird through the air. he drew a long breath as he crept out upon the roof. he was alone now, and, sinking down upon the cushions underneath the parapet, he wrestled with his grief, letting it have its way up here in the darkness so that he might confine it the more surely afterwards. for an hour on this first night of the revolt he remained alone upon the roof-top whilst marguerite, separated from him by the height of the beleaguered house, sat amongst the lighted candles in the room by the court, steeling herself to a sacrifice which should equal his.
when she was sure of herself she wrapped a dark cloak about her shining frock and climbed in her turn to the roof. but she moved very silently, and when she raised her head above the trap she saw her lover stretched upon the terrace, his turban thrown aside, his face buried in his arms, his whole attitude one of almost oriental grief. he was unaware of her until she crouched by his side and, with something maternal in the loving pity of her hands, gently stroked his head.
“paul!” she whispered, and he sprang swiftly up. she got a glimpse of a tortured face, and then he dropped by her side and, putting his arms about her, caught her to his heart.
“my dear! my dear!” he said.
“paul,” she began, in a breaking voice, but paul would not listen. he pointed his arm westwards over the parapet.
“look!”
in their neighbourhood all was quiet, though here and there a building was burning near enough to light up from time to time their faces. but away in the southwest a broad red glare canopied the quarter and flames leapt and sank.
“what is that?” asked marguerite, distracted from her purpose.
“the mellah,” replied paul. “they have looted and burnt it. it’s the rule and custom. whatever the cause of an uprising, the mellah is the first to suffer.”
marguerite had never set foot in that quarter. paul described it to her—its dirty and crowded alleys, its blue-washed houses jammed together and packed with rich treasures and gaudy worthlessness, gramophones blaring out some comic song of london or paris, slatternly women and men, ten thousand of them, and then the bursting in of the gates.
“and the jews themselves! what has become of them?” she asked, with a shudder.
“god knows!”
unarmed, pounded like sheep within their high walls, they were likely to have been butchered like sheep, too.
“there’s a small new gate, however, leading to their cemetery. they may have found that way free,” said paul, without any confidence. but, as a fact, they had escaped whilst their houses were being plundered. the gardens of the sultan’s palace, which adjoined, had been swiftly thrown open to them, and at this very moment they were camping there without food or money or shelter—except the lucky ones who had made little family groups in the empty cages of mulai hafid’s menagerie between the lions and the jaguars.
“paul”—marguerite began a second time, but now a rattle of firing and a distant clamour of fierce cries broke out upon their left hand. paul ravenel turned in the direction of the noise eagerly, and as marguerite turned with him, once more her attention was arrested. from a semi-circle of streets a blaze of light across which thick volumes of smoke drifted, rose above the house-tops, so that the faces of the two watchers were lit up as by a sunset.
“it is the attack upon the consulates,” said paul. “it will fail. there are troops enough now to hold it.”
on the other side of the city, however, to the north, it was a different matter. by the bab-el-mahroud the french outpost was hard-pressed. paul was listening with all his intentness.
“it sounds as if our ammunition was running short,” he said, in a low, grave voice; and this time marguerite was not to be denied. kneeling up, she caught paul by the arms as he sat, and turned him toward her. the light, strong and bright, was sweeping across his face in waves.
“paul, is it true?” she asked, searching his eyes.
paul ravenel had no need to ask what was true; he had no heart to deny its truth. the thing which most he dreaded had come to pass. marguerite knew what he had done. he had been certain that she knew from the moment when she had laid her hand upon his head.
“yes,” he answered, meeting her gaze. “it is true.”
“you are not on leave!”
“no.”
“you have deserted!”
paul’s face twitched with a spasm of pain, but he did not take his eyes from marguerite.
“yes,” he said.
marguerite shook him gently as one might shake a wayward child.
“but you can’t do that, paul.”
“i have done it, marguerite.”
“oh, paul—you can’t have understood what you were doing! you can’t have thought!”
“i have thought of everything.”
“you have sacrificed your honour.”
“i have you.”
“your career.”
“i have you.”
“you have lost every friend.”
“what do i care about friend’s, marguerite, when i have you?”
she let go of his arms with such an expression of grief and despair upon her face as cut him to the heart to see. she bowed her forehead upon the palms of her hands and burst into tears. paul drew her close to him, seeking to comfort her.
“we shall be together, marguerite, always. yesterday night, when i foretold you of these massacres—you took it lightly because we were together. you seemed to say nothing in the world mattered so long as we were together.”
“but don’t you see, paul”—she drew herself away and raised her face, down which tears were running—“we have been both of us alone to-night—already. you here on the roof—i in the court below—and we wanted to be alone, yes, my dear—why deny it, since i know? we wanted to be alone, each of us with our miserable thoughts. . . . in a little while you’ll hate me.”
“no,” he said, violently. “that could never be.”
she bent her head over his hands and pressed them to her eyes, wetting them with her tears.
“paul,” she whispered between her sobs, “i can’t take such a sacrifice. oh, my dear, you should have left me with my seven francs and my broken bundle on that balcony in casablanca.”
paul stooped and kissed her hair.
“marguerite, i wouldn’t have left you there for anything in the world. from the moment i saw you there was no world for me, except the world in which you and i moved step by step and hand-in-hand.”
