He took the envelope from his breast.
“I shall trust you with more than my life,” he said.
“Your Excellency has honoured me with his friendship. I am his servant in all things.”
“I have been for three nights writing this letter. I had it in my mind to open it here and read it to you. But the bad news you have given me points to another way. It may be that there will be no need to use it. I give it into your hands and I beg you to keep it sealed as it is, until you are certain of my death. If I am alive I shall find a means to let you know. If I am dead, I pray you to do all that I have written here.”
Si El Hadj Arrifa took the letter and bowed his forehead upon it, as though it carried the very Sultan’s seal.
“With God’s will, I will do as you direct.”
Paul took his friend by the hand, and looked him in the eyes.
“I could not rest quiet in my grave if my wishes written there were not fulfilled — if misfortune struck where there is no need that it should strike. A voice would call to me, in sorrow and distress, and I should hear it and stir in my grave though I was buried metres deep in clay. It is a promise?”
“Yes.”
Si El Hadj Arrifa struck a bell and a man came out to him from the servants’ quarters.
“All is quiet, Mohammed?”
“Up till this hour.”
“His Excellency’s horse then! You will go in front of him with a lantern as far as the Bab Segma. His Excellency returns to the camp at Dar-Debibagh.”
The servant’s eyes opened wide in fear. He looked from his master to his master’s guest, as though both of them had been smitten with madness. Then he went out upon his business, and the two men in the court heard the fall of the bars and the grinding of the lock of the door.
“I will put this away,” said Si El Hadj Arrifa, balancing the letter in his hands; and he went upstairs to his own room. When he came down Paul was standing in the patio, with his cap upon his head.
“I will bid you good-bye here my friend,” said Paul, but his host, terrified though he was, would not so far fall short of his duties. He went out with Paul Ravenel to the street. The city all about them was very quiet. There was no light anywhere but the light in the big lantern which Mohammed was carrying in one hand whilst he held the bridle of Paul’s horse with the other. Paul mounted quickly and without a word. Si El Hadj Arrifa stood in the doorway of his house. He watched the lantern dwindle to a spark, he heard the sharp loud crack of the horse’s shoes upon the cobbles soften and grow dull. He waited until the spark had vanished, and, a little time afterwards, the beat of the hoofs had ceased. And still there was no sign of any trouble, no distant clamour as of men gathering, no shrill cries from the women on the roofs. He went back into his house.
A William Fox Production. The Winding Stair.
PAUL FIRST MEETS MARGUERITE, DANCER IN THE CAFE IRIS.
CHAPTER XII
The Little Door in the Angle
SI EL HADJ Arrifa squatted upon his cushions and stared at the flames of the candles in his branched silver candlestick. Captain Paul Ravenel would be half way through the Tala now. It was always in that quarter of the town that turbulence began. He would be half way through the Tala, therefore half way between this house and the Bab Segma too. And as yet there was not a cry. Si El Hadj Arrifa had never known a night so still. But then he had never listened before with such an intensity of fear, fear for himself, fear for that friend of his riding through the silent town, with the lantern swinging close to the ground in front of him. The sky had cleared after the rain and the stars were bright above the open square of the roof. But it was dark and once past the Bab Segma and clear of the town, Paul Ravenel would slip like a swift shadow over the soft ground to Dar-Debibagh. He must be near the gates by now. Si El Hadj Arrifa pictured him now skirting the gardens of Bou Djeloud and very close to the gate; a few yards more, that was all. Si El Hadj Arrifa imagined him knocking upon the gate for the watchman to open it. A sense of relief stole over the Moor. Mohammed would be back very soon now. Upon the relief followed drowsiness. Si El Hadj Arrifa’s head fell forward upon his breast and his body slipped into an easier attitude. . . .
Yes, Paul Ravenel was undoubtedly rapping upon the Segma gate, but rapping rather urgently, rather insistently. How those dogs of watchmen slept, to be sure! And Si El Hadj Arrifa woke with a start and very cold. It was upon his own outer door that some one knocked urgently and insistently.
The Moor rose to his feet and stopped. His eyes had fallen upon his fine silver candlesticks and he stood upright and stiff in a paralysis of terror. The candles had burnt low. He had slept there for a long time. Mohammed should have been back an hour ago. The sound of his knocking, too, urgent, yet with all its urgency, discreet, spoke, like a voice of fear. Something untoward then had happened. Yet the city still slept. Si El Hadj Arrifa was no braver than most of his fellow townsmen. He shivered suddenly and violently and little whimpers of panic broke from his lips. Massacres were not conducted quietly. Uproar and clamour waited upon them; and the strange and eerie silence brooding over the town daunted the soft luxurious Moor till his bones seemed to melt within his body. It was stealthy and sinister like an enemy hidden in the dark. He crept into the passage and listened. There was nothing to hear but the urgent scratching and rapping upon the door.
“Is that you, Mohammed?” he asked.
“Yes, Master.”
Si El Hadj Arrifa unfastened the door and held it ajar, looking out. Mohammed was alone, and there was no longer a lantern in his hand.
“Come in! And make no noise!” said Si El Hadj Arrifa.
Mohammed slipped into the passage, closed the strong door so cautiously that not a hinge whined, then locked and bolted and barred it.
“Now follow me!”
The Moor led the way back to the room with the brass bedstead and sank like a man tired out on to the cushions. His servant stood in front of him with a passive mask-like face and eyes which shone bright with fear in the light of the candles. “Speak low!” said Si El Hadj Arrifa; and this is the story which Mohammed told in a voice hardly above a whisper.
The French officer did not ride to the Segma Gate. He called in a quiet voice to Mohammed and turned off towards the Bab-el-Hadid on the south of the town.
“The Bab-el-Hadid,” Si El Hadj Arrifa repeated in wonderment.
“But his Excellency did not go as far as the gate. He stopped at the hospital and dismounted,” said Mohammed.
Si El Hadj Arrifa’s face lightened. The hospital was the headquarters of the military command. Paul Ravenel had taken his story there.
Paul had remained for a long time in the hospital. Two officers came out with him at length, one of whom was dressed in slippers and pyjamas with a dressing gown thrown on as if he had been wakened from his bed.
“Was his Excellency smiling?” asked Si El Hadj Arrifa.
“No. The other two were smiling. His Excellency shrugged his shoulders and mounted his horse heavily like a man in trouble.”
Si El Hadj Arrifa nodded his head and muttered to himself.
“They will not believe,” he said. “No, they will not believe.” He looked towards Mohammed. “Then he went out by the Bab-el-Hadid?”
But Paul had not. He had turned his back to the Bab-el-Hadid and bade Mohammed lead to the Karouein quarter.
They went for a while through silent empty streets, Mohammed ten paces or so ahead, holding the lantern so that the light shone upon the ground and Paul Ravenel following upon his horse. Mohammed did not turn round at all to see that the Captain was following him, but the shoes of the horse clacked on the cobbles just behind him and echoed from wall to wall. They came to the first gate and it was open. The great doors stood back against the wall and the watchman was not at his post. Mohammed was frightened. An omission to shut off the quarters of the city one from the other at night could not be due to negligence. This was an order given by authority. However, no one stoppe
d them; they saw no one; they heard no one.
They came to a second gate. This too stood wide. Beyond the gate the street was built over for a long way making a black tunnel, and half way down the tunnel it turned sharply at a right angle. When this corner had been turned, a glimmer of twilight far ahead would show where the tunnel ceased.
Mohammed passed in under the roof over the street and after he had walked some twenty paces forward, he judged that Captain Ravenel had fallen a little behind, the shoes of the horse no longer rang so clearly on the stones. He turned then, and saw horse and rider outlined against the dark sky, as they reached the tunnel’s mouth. He noticed Paul Ravenel bent forward over the neck of his horse to prevent his head from knocking against the low roof. Then he entered the tunnel and was at once swallowed up in the blackness of it.
Mohammed walked forward again rather quickly. For he was afraid of this uncanny place, and turned the angle of the street without looking round again. He did not think at all. If he had, he would have understood that once the feeble flicker of his lantern were lost beyond the corner, Paul Ravenel would be left in the darkness of the blind, the mouth of the tunnel behind him, a blank wall before his face. Mohammed was in a fever to reach the open street again and now that he saw it in front of him at the end of the passage opaquely glimmering as an uncurtained window on a dark night will glimmer to one in a room, he pushed eagerly forward. He was close to the outlet when he realised that no horse’s hoofs rang on the cobbles behind him.
He turned and peered back into the tunnel. There was nothing to be seen and there was no sound. Mohammed did not dare to call out. He stood wavering between his duty and his fear; and suddenly a tremendous clatter broke the silence and frightened Mohammed out of his wits. Mohammed had just time to draw back close against the wall when a horse dashed past him at a full gallop. A stirrup iron struck and tore his djellaba and the horse was gone — out of the tunnel up the street. But Mohammed’s eyes were now accustomed to the darkness. He was able to see against the sky that the horse was riderless.
Something had startled the horse and the French Captain was thrown. He was lying on the ground back there, in the darkness. That was all! Thus Mohammed reasoned, listening. Yes, certainly that was all — except that it might well be that the French Captain was hurt.
Mohammed must return and find out. Quaking with alarm he retraced his steps, throwing the light of his lantern on one side of the passage after the other. But so far the passage was empty. No doubt the Captain would be lying on the ground beyond the angle where the tunnel turned. But here too he searched in vain. The Captain had disappeared: somewhere between the two outlets in this black place. He had gone!
Mohammed lifted the lantern above his head, swinging it this way and that so that the light flickered and danced upon the walls. Then his arm grew steady. Opposite it to him in the darkest corner there was a little door studded with great nails — a door you never perceived though you passed through the tunnel ten times a day. Mohammed crossed to it, touched it, shook it. It was locked and bolted. He was debating whether he should knock upon it or no. But he dared not. This was the beginning of that Holy War which was to free El Magreb from the clutch of the Christians, — the stealthy beginning. To-morrow there would not be one of them alive in Fez, and outside Fez the land would be one flame of vengeance. If the French Captain were behind that little door he must be praying for a swift death!
Mohammed drew back and suddenly the mouth of the tunnel was obscured and he saw the figures of two men. Panic had been hovering about Mohammed these many minutes since. It took him by the throat and the heart now. With a cry he dashed his lantern on the ground and fled leaping, past the two men. He was not followed.
This is the story which Mohammed told to Si El Hadj Arrifa in the room with the clocks and the brass bedstead and the silver candelabra.
“That is the gate by Karouein Mosque?” said the master, when his servant had done.
“Yes.”
Si El Hadj Arrifa nodded his head thoughtfully. He did not believe that the Captain had been captured or slain in this noiseless fashion. He himself had been bidden not to open that big envelope locked away upstairs until he was very certain that Paul Ravenel was dead. The Captain had his plans into which it was no business of his friend to pry.
“As to that little door, Mohammed,” he said. “It will be well to forget it.”
“It is forgotten, Master,” answered Mohammed, and far away but very clear and musical in the silence of the night the voice of a mueddin on a lofty minaret called the Faithful to their prayers.
CHAPTER XIII
The Companions of the Night
SI EL HADJ Arrifa was right. When Mohammed saw Paul Ravenel ride forward out of the loom of the night into the darkness of the tunnel, bending his head so that it might not strike the roof, he missed a slight action which was much more significant. Paul slipped his right hand into his pocket and took out a heavy key. He had been seeing to it that Mohammed should draw gradually ahead and by the time when he came opposite to the little door in the angle, Mohammed was far beyond the turn and there was not the faintest glimmer of light from the lantern. Paul slipped from his saddle, gave his horse a sharp cut across the buttocks with his riding whip, and as the startled animal galloped off, turned quickly to the little door.
He was in a darkness so complete that he could not see the key in his hand nor the hand that held it. Yet he found the keyhole at once and in another second he was within the house. The passage in which he found himself was as black as the tunnel outside. Yet he locked the door, picked up and fitted the stout transverse bars into their sockets as neatly as though he worked in the broad noon. He had made no sound at all. Yet he had shut a door between the world and himself, and the effort of his life now must be to keep it for ever closed. He had a queer fancy that a door thus momentously closing upon his fortunes ought to clang so loudly that the noise of it would reach across the city.
“There was once a Paul Ravenel,” he said to himself.
The lantern in Mohammed’s hands flickering upon the walls of the tunnel and every second dwindling a little more, receding a little more, danced before his eyes. There went the soul and spirit of that Paul Ravenel.
He was aroused from his misery by the sound of Mohammed’s hands sliding curiously over the panels of the door. The cry of panic followed quickly and the clatter of the lantern upon the cobble stones. Paul waited with his pistol in his hand, wondering what had startled his attendant. But silence only ensued and he turned away from the door into the house. At the end of a short passage he opened a second door and stood on the threshold of a small court brightly lit and beautiful. A round pool from which a jet of water sprang and cooled the sultry air was in the centre of the white-tiled floor. Wooden pillars gaily painted and gilded and ornamented in the Moorish fashion, not by carving but by little squares and cubes and slips of wood delicately glued on in an intricate pattern, supported arches giving entrance to rooms. There was a cool sound of river water running along an open conduit waist-high against a wall; and poised in an archway across the court with her eyes eagerly fixed upon the passage stood Marguerite Lambert, a tender and happy smile upon her lips.
When Paul Ravenel saw her, the remorse which had been stinging him during the ride and had reached a climax of pain as he stood behind the door, was stilled. Marguerite had changed during this year. The hollows of her shoulders and throat had filled. The haggard look of apprehension had vanished from her face. Colour had come into her cheeks and gaiety into her eyes and a bright gloss upon her hair. She wore a fragile little white frock embroidered with silver which a girl might have worn at a dance in a ball room of London or Paris; and in the exotic setting of that court she seemed to him a flame of wonder and beauty. And she was his. He held her in his arms, the softness of her cheek against his.
“Marguerite!” he said. “Each time I see you it is for the first time. How is that?” But Marguerite did not answer to his lau
gh. She held him off and scanned him with anxious eyes.
“Something has happened, Paul.”
“No.”
“When you came in, you were troubled.”
“When I saw you the trouble passed. I was afraid that you might be angry. I am very late.”
Marguerite did not believe one word of that explanation, but the way to discover the true one did not lie through argument. She drew Paul across the court, holding him by the hand and saying lightly:
“Foolish one, should I quarrel with you on the evening before you march away? You might never come back to me.”
She led him into a side room and drew him down beside her on the thick, low cushions. Upstairs there were chairs and tables and the paraphernalia of a western home. Here on the level of the patio and the street they had for prudence’ sake kept it all of the country. There was no brass bedstead, it is true, to ornament the room, but there were three tall grandfather clocks, though only one of them was going and that marked the true time. Marguerite laid her head in the hollow of his shoulder and her arm went round his waist.
“Paul, you won’t get killed!” she whispered. “Oh, take care! take care! I am afraid. This year has been so perfect.”
“You must have been lonely many days.”
“And many nights,” whispered Marguerite, with a little grimace. Then she laughed with the trill of a bird. “But you had just gone or you were soon returning and my thoughts were full of you. I am not difficult and thorny, am I, Paul? Say so! Say so at once!”
He laid her down so that her shoulders rested on his knee and her face smiled up at him, and bending he kissed her on the mouth for an answer.
“You are the most golden thing that ever happened in this world,” he said. “I think of all those years that I lived through, before I met you, quite contented with myself and knowing nothing — no, absolutely nothing of the great miracle.”
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 574