gradually the attack upon the consulates died away. the waving light from the blaze of torches in the ring of streets about that quarter diminished, and darkness came again to the watchers upon the roof top. they sat huddled together in silence. marguerite’s broken sobbing had ceased. above them the bright stars wheeled in a sky of velvet. only away to the north, where the beleaguered post still held out at the bab-el-mahroud, was there now any sound of firing, or any faint clamour of voices. the troubled city rested, waiting for daylight.
paul became conscious that marguerite was stirring out of the abandonment of grief in which she had lain. he felt her supple body stiffen in his arms. some idea, some plan perhaps, had occurred to her of which he must beware; all the more because she did not speak of it. he was pondering what that plan might be, when above their heads, in their very ears it seemed, the first mueddin on the balcony of his minaret launched over the city his vibrant call to prayer.
the sound startled them both so that they clung together.
“don’t move,” whispered paul.
“the companions of the sick!” said marguerite, in a low voice. “my dear, we shall need them to-night as much as any two in fez.”
they waited for a few moments. then they crept swiftly and silently to the hatchway and closed it above their heads. in marguerite’s room paul lighted the candles. marguerite was wearing the little frock of white and silver in which she had dressed the night before, and she let the dark cloak slip from her shoulders and fall about her feet.
“paul,” she said, joining her hands together upon her breast in appeal. “i want you to do something—for me. you can walk safely through the streets. dressed as you are, no one will know you. no one will suspect you. if you are spoken to, you can answer. you are ben sedira the meknasi. i want you to go at once to the protected quarter.”
“why, marguerite?”
“you can rejoin your battalion.”
“no.”
“oh, you can, paul! you can make yourself known. they will let you through their barricades.”
“it is too late,” said paul.
marguerite would not accept the quiet statement.
“no,” she pleaded, her eyes eager, her mouth trembling. “i have been thinking it out, my dear, up there on the roof. you can make an excuse. you were seized yesterday night after you had visited the headquarters. you were pulled from your horse. you were kept imprisoned and escaped to-night.”
paul shook his head.
“no one would believe that story, marguerite. the people of fez are making no prisoners.”
“then you took refuge in the house of a friend! you have many friends in fez, paul. a word from you and any one of them will back you up and say he gave you shelter. it’ll be so easy, paul, if you’ll only listen.”
“and meanwhile, marguerite, what of you?”
she was waiting for that question with her answer ready upon her lips.
“yes. i have thought of that too, paul. i shall be quite safe here now by myself. they have searched this house already. they went away satisfied with your story. they will not come here again.”
paul smiled at her tenderly. she stood before him with so eager a flush upon her face, a light so appealing in her eyes. only this morning—was it so short a time ago as this morning?—yes, only this morning she had been terrified, even with him at her side, because they were shut in within this house without windows, because they could see nothing, know nothing, and must wait and wait with their hearts fluttering at a cry, at the crack of a rifle, at the sound of a step. now her one thought was to send him forth, to endure alone the dreadful hours of ignorance and expectation, to meet, if needs must, the loneliest of deaths, so that his honour might be saved and his high career retained.
“you are thinking too much of me, marguerite,” he said, gently.
marguerite shook her head.
“i am thinking of myself, my dear, just as much as i am thinking of you. i am thinking of your love for me. what am i without it?”
“nothing will change that,” protested paul.
marguerite smiled wistfully.
“my dear, how many lovers have used and listened to those words? is there one pair that hasn’t? i am looking forward, paul, to when this trouble is over—to the best that is possible for us two if we are alive when it is over. your way! flight, concealment for the rest of our lives and a bond of disgrace to hold us together instead of a bond of love which has done no harm to any one and has given a world of happiness to both of us. paul, my way is the better way! oh, believe it and leave me! paul, i am pleading for myself—i am!—and”—the light went out of her eyes, her head and her body drooped a little; he had never seen anything so forlorn as marguerite suddenly looked—“and, oh, ever so much more than you imagine!” she added, wistfully.
paul took her by the arm which hung listlessly at her side.
“my dear, i can invent no story which would save me. the first shot was fired at noon to-day, not yesterday. nothing can alter that. and even if it could be altered, i won’t leave you to face these horrors alone. i brought you to fez—don’t let us forget that! i hid you in this house. my place is here with you.”
but whilst he was speaking ravenel had a feeling that he had not reached to the heart of the plan which she had formed upon the roof. the sudden change in her aspect, the quick drop from eager pleading to a forlorn hopelessness, the wistful cry, “i am pleading for myself ever so much more than you imagine!”—no, he had not the whole of her intention. there was more in her mind than the effort to persuade him to leave her. there was a provision, a remedy, if persuasion failed.
paul let her arm go and drew back a step or two until he leaned against a table of walnut wood set against the wall. marguerite turned to the dressing-table and stood playing absently with her little ornaments, her brushes, and her combs. then she surprised him by another change of mood. the eager, tender appeal, the sudden hopelessness were followed now by a tripping flippancy.
“fancy your caring so much for me, paul!” she cried, and she tittered like a schoolgirl. “a little dancing thing from the villa iris! i am not worth it. am i, paul?”
she turned to him, soliciting “yes” for an answer, smiling with her lips though she could not with her eyes, and keeping these latter lowered so that he should not see them. “well, since your silence tells me so politely that i am, i’ll give up trying to persuade you to leave me.” she yawned. “i am tired to death, paul. i shall sleep to-night. and you?”
she cocked her head on one side with a coquettish gaiety, false to her at any time, and never so false to her as now. to paul, whose memory had warned him for the second time that day, it was quite dreadful to see.
“i shall watch in the court below,” he said, and he moved a step or two away from the little table against the wall.
“then go, or i shall fall asleep where i stand,” said marguerite, and she led him to the wide doors opening on to the landing. “i shall leave the doors open, so that you will be within call.”
she gave him a little push which was more of a caress than a push, and suddenly caught him back to her. her eyes were raised now, her arms were about his neck.
“paul,” she whispered, and both eyes and lips were smiling gravely, “whatever happens to me, my dear, i shall owe you some wonderful months of happiness. months which i had dreamed of, and which proved more wonderful than any dreams. thank you, dear one! thank you a thousand times!”
she kissed him upon the lips and laid her hand upon his cheek and stood apart from him.
“good-night, paul.”
paul ravenel answered her with a curious smile.
“you might be saying good-bye to me, marguerite.”
marguerite shook her head with determination.
“i shall never say good-bye to you, paul, not even if this very second we were to hear the assassins surging up the stairs,” she said, her eyes glowing softly into his, and a sure faith making her face very beautiful. “we have broken codes and laws, my dear, both of us. but we have both touched, i think, in spite of that, something bigger and finer than we had either of us believed was here to touch. and i don’t believe that—you and i”—she made a little gesture with her hand between herself and him—“the miracle as you called it, of you and me can end just snapped off and incomplete. why, my dear, even if we go right back to earth, at the very worst, i believe,” she said, with a smile of humour, “some spark of you will kindle some dry tinder of me and make a flame to warm a luckier pair of lovers.”
paul looked at her in silence.
“you talk to me like that!” he said, at length. “and then you try to persuade me you weren’t worth while.” he turned the moment of emotion with a laugh. “good-night, marguerite,” and he went downstairs.
marguerite waited without moving whilst he descended the stairs and crossed the court. she heard him pass into the room with the archway and the clocks. he was quite invisible to her now. therefore, so was she to him; and she was standing very close to the doors; just within her bedroom—no more. she stepped back silently. there were rugs upon the floor, and between the rugs she stepped most carefully lest one of the heels of her satin shoes should clack upon the boards. she went straight to the little table of walnut wood set against the wall and laid her hand upon the drawer. the handle was of brass; she lifted it so that it should not rattle, and so stood with an ear towards the stairway, listening. but no sound came from the court, there was not a creak of any tread on the stairs. reassured, marguerite pulled open the drawer a little way. the table had been fashioned in a century when tables really were made. the drawer slid out smoothly and noiselessly just far enough for marguerite’s hand to slip through the opening.
her fingers, however, touched nothing. she opened the drawer wider. it was empty. yet it had not been empty that evening when she had changed her clothes.
“paul was standing here,” she said to herself. “yes, facing me with his back to the table, whilst i was talking to him.”
she remembered now that when she had thrown her arms about his neck, as he stood in the doorway, he had kept his left hand behind his back. she sat down upon the edge of the bed, and a smile flitted across her face.
“i might have known that he would have understood,” she whispered. he always had understood from the first moment when, without a word, he had called her to him at the villa iris. but marguerite must make sure. she stole out on to the landing. from the point where she stood she could look down and across the court into the room with the clocks. paul was lying upon the cushions in a muse, looking at something which lay darkly gleaming on the out-stretched palm of his hand—her little automatic pistol. he had cleaned it and reloaded it and replaced it in the drawer that afternoon, after marguerite had fainted and it had exploded on the floor. he had taken it out of the drawer when marguerite was bidding him good-bye a few minutes back. for, mingled with her words, another and a coarser voice had been whispering in his ears. “and if it comes—the grand passion! she will blow her brains out—the little fool!”
not from disillusionment, as henriette with her bitter experience of life expected, but to save him, paul ravenel, to set him free, whilst there was still perhaps a chance that by some deft lie he might hold on to his career and his good name. “that, no!” said paul, and he pushed the pistol into his waistbelt and composed himself for his long vigil.
the candles burned down, and one by one flickered out; mueddin succeeded mueddin in the minaret; but for their voices the town was quiet; paul ravenel tired with the anxiety, the sleeplessness, and the inward conflicts which through thirty hours had been his share, nodded, dozed, and in the end slept. he woke to find the grey of the morning thinning the shadows in the house, making it chill and eerie and an abode of ghosts. surely a ghost was stirring in the house with a little flutter and hiss of unsubstantial raiment, a ripple of silver and fire—there by the balustrade above the patio, now on the stairs. . . . and now paul ravenel, though he did not move, was wide awake, watching from his dark corner with startled eyes. marguerite was on the stairs, now stopping to peer over towards her lover, lest he should have moved, now most stealthily descending.
the last mueddin had ceased his chant, a hum of voices rose through the still air without the house; the city was waking to another day of massacre. and marguerite was creeping down the stairs. she had not gone to bed that night, after all. she was still wearing her white frock with the embroidery of silver. she had thrown over her shoulders a glistening cloak. she had put on the jewels he had given her. they sparkled in the dim light on her bosom—a square sapphire hung on a chain of platinum and diamonds which went about her neck—on her wrists, on her shoes, at her waist.
“why? why?” he asked of himself; and as marguerite reached the foot of the stairs and stepped into the court, he had the answer to his question. for something gleamed in her hand—the great key of the street door.
paul ravenel was just in time. for with the swiftness and the silence of the ghost he had almost taken her to be, marguerite flashed across the patio, and was gone.
“marguerite!” he cried aloud, as he sprang to his feet, so that the house rang with his cry. a sob, a wail of despair answered him, a clink as the heavy key dropped from her startled hands. he found her blindly fumbling at the bolts, distraught with her need of haste.
“paul, let me go! let me go!” she cried.
he lifted her in his arms as one lifts a child and carried her back into the court.
“marguerite!” he whispered. “a step outside that tunnel dressed as you are, now that fez is awake, and—”
“i know, i know,” she interrupted him. “i should be out of your way altogether. oh, paul, let me go! i have been thinking of it all night. i can’t take, all the time, and everything you have that’s dear to you! let me give too—something in return—my life, my dear, that’s worth so little. oh, paul, let me give it now, when i am ready to give it—before my courage goes,” and she struggled and beat upon his breast with her small fists in a frenzy.
but he held her close to him. “poor child, what a night of horror she must have lived through,” he reflected. lying on her bed in the dark, waiting for the first gleam of dawn, for the first sounds of the city’s awakening, and shutting her eyes and her ears against the terror of these savage and wild-eyed fanatics, forbidding her heart to sink before the ordeal of her great sacrifice. she had decked herself out in her jewels, like that bride of whom she had told him, but for a different reason; that she might the sooner attract notice and invite murder.
“it was mad, marguerite!” he cried, and then, holding her to his heart. “but it was splendid!”
already her strength was waning. she no longer struggled. she hung in his arms. her hands stroked his face.
“let me go, paul,” she pleaded, “won’t you? it will be quick. the first of them who sees me! oh, while i can do it. my dear, my dear, i’ll gladly die for you, i love you so.”
“quick?” exclaimed paul ravenel, savagely. “you don’t know them! i have seen our men on the battlefields. quick? my dear, they would bind you hand and foot and give you to their women to mutilate alive.”
marguerite uttered a cry and struggled against him no more. he carried her up the stairs, undressed her, and put her to bed. she laid her hand in his. he would have his way. she gave herself into his keeping and, holding fast on to his hand, she fell asleep.
that morning the roar of the guns was louder, and the shells were flying over the city.
