on the twenty-first of april, three days later, gerard de montignac rode into fez at ten o’clock of the morning behind general moinier. he was lodged at the auvert hospital and as he came out of his room he passed in the corridor a face which he remembered. he turned on the instant.
“baumann!”
baumann was that short stockish alsatian belonging to the department of native affairs, whom gerard many months before had sought at the villa iris. he shook gerard’s hand with deferential warmth.
“captain de montignac! how can i serve you?”
the sight of gerard always made baumann think of the bois de bologne and brought to his nostrils a smell of paris. “stylish” was baumann’s epithet for this slim razor-like being.
“you can tell me for a second time how it goes with my grand serieux, and where he is to be found.”
baumann was enchanted by the familiar allusion. it made him out as an intimate of captain de montignac. but he was baffled too.
“the name would help,” he said, hesitating.
“oh, paul ravenel, of course,” replied gerard impatiently, and baumann’s face lengthened. he fidgeted uncomfortably on his feet. yes, paul ravenel, to be sure! captain de montignac had been uneasy about paul ravenel in casablanca, when there was really no occasion for uneasiness. this time, however, the case was very different.
“alas, my captain, i can give you no news of your friend at all. many officers were caught at a disadvantage. we are afraid—yes, we are all very much afraid.”
gerard, with his legs apart and his hands thrust into the pockets of his riding-breeches, looked at his twittering companion for a moment. then he said abruptly:
“let me hear!”
baumann had an uncomfortable little story to tell. late on the night of the sixteenth, the night before the massacres openly began, captain ravenel had ridden up to the door of the hospital with a native servant carrying a lantern in front of him. he was labouring under a great anxiety and distress. baumann himself received captain ravenel and heard his story. captain ravenel had assured him that the askris would revolt immediately, and that there would be a massacre of the white people throughout the city.
“and you didn’t believe paul ravenel?” thundered gerard de montignac. baumann was in a haste to exculpate himself.
“i waked up the two intelligence officers, colonel renaud and captain brouarre,” he said. “they came down in their pyjamas. we went into the room on the right of the entrance here, and the captain told us all again many bad things which have since been fulfilled.”
“and you wouldn’t believe paul ravenel!” gerard looked at baumann with a bitter amazement. “he gave you the warning, he, the wise one, and you thought he was exaggerating like some panic-stricken rich fasi.”
“we hoped he was exaggerating,” said the unhappy baumann. “you see, our hands were tied. reports that disturbances were likely had gone to the embassy before and had been not very civilly received. it was an order that no similar reports should be presented. it was late at night. we could do nothing.”
gerard could read into the halting sentences all that baumann was not the man to say.
“well?” he asked, curtly. “what of paul?”
paul, very disappointed, had mounted his horse again and ridden off to the bab segma on his way to the camp at dar-debibagh.
“but he never reached the camp. he has not been seen since. we are all very much afraid.”
it was quite clear that baumann had no hope at all that paul ravenel would ever be seen again.
“most of our people scattered through fez have been accounted for,” he added. “many were rescued and brought here to safety. the bodies of others, too, but not of all. there has been no means of making enquiries.”
“that of course i understand,” said gerard de montignac, as he turned sorrowfully away.
gerard was a monarchist. some day the french would have a king again, when there was a claimant worth his salt. meanwhile he was heart and soul for france, whatever its régime. so his first grief now was for the loss to france of the great soldier that was surely to be—nay, that was already beginning to be. he had lost a good comrade and friend too. these losses must be paid for—as soon as there was leisure to exact payment—and paid for in full.
meanwhile he went about his work. on the twenty-second the troops occupied the city. the two following days were taken up in the disarmament of the population. yet other two days were given to pleadings and arguments and exhortations to paris and the civil authorities for permission to declare a state of siege. only when this permission was reluctantly granted and the order made, could any of the general’s staff unbutton their tunics and give a little time to their own affairs.
gerard’s first move was to ride out to the camp at dar-debibagh, whither paul’s battalion of tirailleurs had now returned. there he found the little praslin now in command of paul’s company, and the little praslin had information of importance to give to him.
“captain ravenel rode back with me to the camp from the sultan’s palace on the evening of the sixteenth, after the great storm,” said praslin. “he was very glad that the storm had delayed for three days the departure of the mission.”
“he knew already, then, that afternoon, that the massacres were coming!” said gerard.
“no! i should say not. he was quite frank about the whole position of affairs here, as he saw it. if he had imagined that fez itself was going to rise he would have said so, i am sure. what he did believe was that a serious attack would be made upon the mission out in the bled, on its way to the coast.”
“he was afraid that the escort was not strong enough?”
“he certainly thought that,” replied praslin, slowly, and in a voice which suggested that he did not consider this explanation at all adequate to explain paul’s satisfaction at the postponement of the march. “but fear doesn’t enter into the matter at all. there was something more. i got the impression that he just hated the idea of going down to the coast if only for a few weeks. he wanted to stay on here in fez. an attack on the line of march! that he would have considered as in the day’s work. no. he didn’t want to leave fez. curious! wasn’t it?”
gerard glanced sharply at lieutenant praslin.
“oho!” he exclaimed, softly. “curious? yes! but then paul ravenel was never like the rest of us.”
he remained silent for a little while, turning some quite new thought over and over uneasily in his mind.
“well?” he said, waking up again.
“after we had returned here, he changed into a dry uniform, for we were both wet through, and told me that he was going to dine with a friend in fez,” praslin resumed. “i reminded him that there was a battalion parade at six the next morning.”
“yes?”
“he answered that he had not forgotten and rode off.”
“and that was the last you heard of him?” asked gerard de montignac.
“no!”
“oh?”
“it was the last i saw of him,” praslin corrected.
“what do you mean?” asked gerard de montignac.
“five minutes after captain ravenel had gone, a native came to the camp and asked for him. he carried a letter.”
gerard’s face lit up.
“a letter? what became of it?”
“it was taken by captain ravenel’s orderly and placed on the table in his tent.”
“yes?”
“the next morning i saw it there and took charge of it. it was addressed in arabic.”
“you have got it still?”
“yes!”
“let me see it!”
gerard reminded the little praslin of some lean sharp-nosed pointer which somewhere in the stubble has picked up a scent. praslin led him to his tent, unlocked a leather satchel and tipped out a number of letters on to his bed.
“here it is!”
he handed a paper, not an envelope, folded and sealed and superscribed in arabic characters, to gerard. gerard almost snatched at it. but once he had it in his hands, he was no longer so sure. he twiddled it between his fingers and gingerly. he sat down in praslin’s camp chair and looked at praslin and looked at the letter. he seemed to be afraid of what he might read in it. finally, in a burst, he cried:
“i shall open it.”
“but of course,” said the little praslin.
gerard broke the seal and read. praslin wondered what he had dreaded to find written upon that paper, so evident was his relief now. it was the letter from si el hadj arrifa which had just missed paul ravenel on the night of the sixteenth. it began with the usual flowery protestations and ended with an apologetic request that paul should not come into fez that night.
“this makes everything easier,” said gerard, springing up from his chair. “i shall keep this letter, praslin.”
he returned with it in his pocket and at once made inquiries as to what was known of si el hadj arrifa. the warning on the face of it was a sign of goodwill to france. yes, but some of these fasi were very foxy people. this letter arriving at the camp just too late to save paul ravenel’s life, but in heaps of time to establish si el hadj arrifa’s good name for loyalty, might easily have been despatched with those two objects. it was all quite in keeping with the sly furtive character of the men of fez. however, gerard was soon satisfied on that point. si el hadj arrifa was of the real friends. gerard accordingly knocked upon his door that very night.
he was received with much ceremony and a great warmth of welcome; not to be wondered at, since the moor had been sitting cowering behind his stoutly-barred door ever since the night of the sixteenth. gerard made haste to put the timid man at his ease.
“all the weapons have been collected. all the gates are held by armed posts. a state of siege is proclaimed so that violence can be dealt with sternly and at once,” he said. but even then he must not put the questions burning on his tongue. france was to remain in morocco. very well! then even in small things must the ways of the country be respected. gerard had the patience which is the kernel and centre of good manners. he sat through the five brewings of green tea, ceremoniously conversing. only then did he come to the reason of his visit.
“it has been my good fortune, o, si el hadj arrifa, to bring you excellent news to-night. would that i could hear news as excellent from you! my friend and your friend, captain ravenel, dined with you one night and rode away from your door, and that night he disappeared.”
si el hadj arrifa struck a bell which stood by his side and spoke a word to the negress who answered it. he turned again to gerard.
“i have sent for my servant mohammed, who carried the lantern in front of his excellency’s horse. he shall tell you the story with his own lips.”
mohammed duly appeared and told the truth—with omissions; how the captain had fallen behind in the tunnel, how the startled horse had dashed past him, how he had returned and found no sign of the captain at all, how two men had appeared and he had fled in a panic. but there was no mention of any small door in the angle of the wall.
“we will look at that tunnel by daylight,” said gerard, when the man had finished, “if, o, si el hadj arrifa, you will lend me your servant.”
he spoke dispiritedly. there seemed very little chance that he would find any trace of his grand serieux. he had been and he was not. no doubt these two men at the mouth of the tunnel had seen their opportunity and seized it. paul ravenel had been the first victim of the massacre, no doubt. yet paul—to be taken unawares—with si el hadj arrifa’s earnest invitation to remain sheltered in his house only within this hour uttered—paul, in a word, warned! that was not like the paul ravenel he knew, at all! and on the next morning, following paul’s route with mohammed for a guide, and a patrol of soldiers, he discovered the little door.
with a thrill of excitement he ran his hands over the heavy nails.
“open! open!” he cried, beating upon the panel with his fists; and pressing his ear against it afterwards, he heard the racket echo emptily through the house.
“open! open!” he cried again, and, turning to the sergeant of the patrol, bade him find a heavy beam. even with that used as a battering ram it took the patrol a good half hour to smash in the little door, so stout it was, so strong the bolts and bars. but the work was done at last. gerard darted in and found himself in a house, small but exquisite in its decorations, its thick cushions of linen worked with the old silk embroideries of fez, its white-tiled floors spread with carpets of the old rabat patterns. but from roof to court the house was empty.
gerard went through every room with the keen eye of a possible tenant with an order to view; and found precisely nothing. had he come a week ago, he would have discovered on the upper floors furniture of a completely european make. all that, however, was safely lodged now in a storehouse belonging to si el hadj arrifa, and the upper floors were almost bare. gerard had left the patio to the last, and whilst he stepped here and there he heard a tinkling sound very familiar to his ears.
“what’s that?” he cried, swinging round.
in a corner of an alcove the sergeant was bending down.
“what’s that, beauprè?” gerard cried again, and the sergeant stood up and faced him. he was holding in his hands the blue tunic of an officer; and on the breast of it a row of the big french medals tinkled and glinted.
gerard took the tunic reverently from the sergeant’s hands. it was all cluttered with blood, and stabbed through and through. it had the badges of paul’s rank, and still discernible on a linen label inside the collar was paul’s name. it was here, then, in this house, that paul ravenel had been done to death. the tunic which gerard held in his hand was the conclusive proof. he stood in the centre of the patio, so pleasant, so quiet now, with the shafts of bright sunlight breaking upon the tiles. who had lived here? what dreadful scene had been staged in this empty house? gerard shivered a little as he thought upon it. the knives at their slow work—the man, his friend, slowly losing, whilst the heart still beat and the nerves stabbed, all the semblance of a man!
“but they shall pay,” he said aloud, in a bellowing voice; and while he shouted, a perplexity began to trouble him. he opened the door leading from the court into the outer passage. this passage was cumbered with the splintered panels, the bolts, the heavy transverse bars which the patrol’s battering ram had demolished. how was it that in this empty house the door was still barricaded from within? he returned into the court and saw that the sergeant had pushed aside a screen at the back, and in a recess had discovered a second door. this door was merely locked, and there was no key in the lock. it was quickly opened. the karouein river raced and foamed amidst its boulders, and between the river and the house wall there ran a tiny path.
gerard crossed to the door.
“yes, that way they went. when, i wonder? perhaps when we were actually beating on the door.”
he unpinned the medals from his friend’s blood-stained tunic and wrapped them up in a handkerchief. there might be somewhere a woman who would love to keep them bright. paul ravenel talked little about his own affairs. who could tell? if there were no one, he could treasure them himself in memory of a good comrade.
meanwhile there was an immediate step to take. a crowd had gathered in the gateway and about the door in the dark tunnel.
“whose is this house?” gerard asked, and there were many voices raised at once with the answer:
“si ahmed driss of ouezzan.”
gerard de montignac was taken aback by the answer. si ahmed driss was one of the great shereefian family of ouezzan, which exercised an authority and a power quite independent of the sultan. from the first, moreover, it had been unswervingly loyal to the french. si ahmed driss himself during the days of massacre had given shelter in the sanctuary of his own residence to all the europeans whom he could reach. gerard de montignac went straight now to where he lived in the tala and begged an audience.
“i have broken into a house which i now learn belongs to you, si ahmed driss, whom may god preserve,” he said.
si ahmed driss was a tall, dignified old gentleman with a white beard flowing over his chest.
“it is forgiven,” he said, gently. “in these days many strange things are done.”
“yet this was not done without reason,” gerard protested, and he told si ahmed driss of the finding of the tunic and the story of mohammed the servant.
si ahmed driss bowed his head.
“that this should have happened in my house puts me to shame,” he said. “i let it many months ago to ben sedira—a man of meknes whom . . .” and a flow of wondrous curses was invoked upon ben sedira himself and his ancestors and descendants to the remotest degrees of consanguinity, by the patriarch. a bargee, could he but have understood, would have listened to them in awe and withdrawn from competition. the old gentleman, however, in uttering them lost none of his dignity.
“ben sedira of meknes,” gerard repeated. “we will see if we can find that man.”
but he had very little hope of succeeding. there had been two clear days between the end of the revolt and the arrival of moinier’s column, during which surveillance could not be exercised. there were not sufficient french soldiers to hold the town gates and question all who went in and out. the moment the french tricolours floated so gaily upon all the house-tops of fez, ben sedira would have known the game was up. he would have gone and gone quickly; nor would meknes in the future house any one of his name.
thus, gerard de montignac reasoned, the affair would remain a mystery. official enquiries would be made. but the great wheels of administration could not halt for ever at the little door in the roofed alley. paul ravenel would become a case, one of the infinite enigmas of mohammedan africa. so he thought during the next fortnight.
but gerard was on general moinier’s staff, and many reports came under his eyes. amongst them, one written by a captain laguessière, giving an account of an unsuccessful attempt to relieve a little post at the bab fetouh on the afternoon of the seventeenth, the second day of the revolt. gerard was reading the report in his office not overcarefully when a passage leaped out on the written page and startled him. he sat for a moment very still. then he shook or tried to shake some troublesome thought from his shoulders.
“it couldn’t be, of course!” he said, but he read the passage again.
and here is what he read:
“i met with no trouble until i had passed the lime-kilns and crossed a bridge over the oued el kebir. here further progress was stopped by three strong groups of moors armed with rifles. it was clear to me that i could not force a way through with my twenty men and retain any hope of relieving the post. i determined, therefore, to make a detour and try to advance by way of the bab jedid. as i recrossed the bridge i was violently attacked from the rear, from in front of me and from a street upon my left; whilst from a house upon my right i saw a number of the askris pour out. i ordered a charge, and, leading ‘au pas gymnastique,’ i brought my men into a narrow turning, whence we were able to clear the street by repeated volleys. i had two men killed and six wounded. i received great assistance from a tall moor who, jumping from the crowd, charged with my men. he was armed only with a big heavy pole, but he swung it about him with so much vigour and skill that he cleared a space for us. i tried to find this moor when i had re-formed my men, but he had disappeared as suddenly as he had come.”
gerard de montignac sat back in his chair and ran his fingers through his sleek hair.
“of course, it’s quite out of the question,” he assured himself. but none the less he rose abruptly and, leaving the report on his desk, went into another office inconveniently crowded. at the far end of the room was seated at a desk the man for whom he was looking.
“baumann!” he called. “can you spare me a minute?”
baumann rose and followed gerard back to his room.
“take a chair there.” he pointed to one at the side of his desk.
“do you remember telling me some time ago at casablanca that you once met captain ravenel close to volubilis?”
“yes,” said baumann. “i didn’t recognise him. he twirled a great staff round his head and frightened me out of my life.”
“yes, that’s it,” said gerard. “a little thing in one of these reports reminded me of your story. i wanted to be sure of it. thank you.”
baumann rose to go and stopped with his hand upon the door-knob.
“a great loss, captain ravenel. there is no news of him, i suppose?”
gerard shook his head.
“none.”
“is it known whom he dined with that last night he was seen?”
“yes. si el hadj arrifa.”
baumann nodded.
“si el hadj arrifa was one of captain ravenel’s closest friends in fez. but there’s another closer still of whom you might enquire.”
“i will. give me his name,” said gerard eagerly, and he drew a slip of paper towards him.
but he did not write upon it. for baumann answered: “si ahmed driss.”
gerard dropped his pencil and looked swiftly up.
“of the sheereefs of ouezzan?”
“yes.”
“you are sure?”
“quite.”
gerard set his elbows on the arms of his chair and joined his hands under his chin.
“so paul was a great friend of si ahmed driss, was he?” he said ever so softly.
“yes. it was as a servant in the train of si ahmed driss of ouezzan that captain ravenel travelled through the zarhoun country, and visited the holy cities.”
“i see. thank you, baumann.”
gerard de montignac was swimming in deep waters. he was not imaginative but he had imagination. he comprehended, though he did not feel, the call and glamour of the east; and nowhere in the world is there a land more vividly eastern in its spirit, its walled cities, its nomad tribes, and its wide spaces, than this northwestern corner of africa. gerard had lived long enough in it to see men yield to it, as to a drug, forsake for it all that is lovely and of good repute. was this what had happened to his friend? he wondered sorrowfully. paul was friendly, cheerful, gay, but none the less really and truly a man of terrific loneliness. walled about always. gerard tried to think of an intimate confidence which paul had ever made him. he could not remember one. he was the very man to whom the strange roads might call with the voices of the sirens. it might be . . . it might be. gerard de montignac never sought again for traces of his lost friend. he left the search to the administration and the administration had other work to do.
