Complete Works of a E W Mason

by A. E. W. Mason

  Paul took a great staff in his hand and came back to Marguerite, and kissed her on the lips.

  “Thank you,” he said. “How you know!”

  “I pay my little price, Paul, for a very big love,” and as was her way, she turned off the moment of emotion with a light word and a laugh. “There! Run along, and mind you don’t get your feet wet!”

  For three hours thereafter she sat alone in the court, with her pistol in her hand, paying her little price; outside the noise of a town in tumult, inside the ticking of a clock. And darkness came.

  * * * * *

  Marguerite had her reward. Paul Ravenel returned at eight o’clock, his robes covered with dust and mud, his body tired, but his black mood gone. He dressed himself after his bath in the grey suit of a European, and as they sat at dinner he gave Marguerite his good news. The back of the rebellion was broken. The tribes which were gathering in the South and East of the town had been dispersed by the artillery.

  “Moinier and his column will be here before they can gather again. They were the great danger, Marguerite. For if they had once got into Fez they would have looted it from end to end. Friend’s house or enemy’s house, Fasi or Christian, would have been all the same to those gentlemen.”

  The rising was premature. That had been the cause of its failure. The quarter of the Consulates and the Embassy had not been carried by storm on the first day. A number of the Askris who had joined the insurgents under fear, were now returning to their duties. The great dignitaries of the Maghzen were in a hurry to protest their loyalty by returning the few wounded prisoners and such dead bodies of the French soldiers as they could collect, to the headquarters at the Hospital.

  “There’s still a post very hard-pressed at the Bab Fetouh. An effort was made to relieve it this afternoon—” Paul Ravenel broke off abruptly with a sudden smile upon his face and a light of enjoyment in his eyes. “I expect that they will try now from Dar-Debibagh outside the walls. It should be easier that way,” he said hurriedly.

  Something had happened that afternoon of which he had not told Marguerite, and to which he owed his high spirits. Marguerite was well aware of it. She had not a doubt that he was hiding from her some rash act of which he was at once rather ashamed and very glad; and it amused her to note how clever he thought himself in concealing it from her. What had happened in that attempt to relieve the post at the Bab Fetouh? Marguerite did not ask, having a fine gift of silence. She had Paul back safe and sound, and the worst of their dangers was over. They were gay once more that night, looking upon it as a sort of sanctuary between the dangers of the past two days and the troubles which awaited them in the future.

  “Shall we go up on the roof?” Marguerite asked, looking at the clock.

  “We will go halfway up to the roof,” replied Paul, and Marguerite laughed as he put out the candles.

  The next day the rebellion was over. A battalion from Meknes with a section of mitrailleuses marched in at three o’clock in the afternoon, having covered the sixty-five kilometres in a single stage. An order was given that every house which wished to avoid bombardment must fly the tricolour flag on the following morning, and Fez was garnished as for a festival. Never was there so swift a change. On every housetop daybreak saw the flag of France, and though the women thronged the terraces as yesterday, they were as silent as the bricks of their parapets. By a curious chance the pall of sullen rain-charged clouds, which for four days had hung low, was on this morning rolled away, and the city shimmered to the sun.

  Paul and Marguerite watched the strange spectacle, hidden behind their roof wall; and their thoughts were busy with the same question:

  “What of us now — the outcasts?”

  Paul looked across the city to Fez Djedid and the East. From that quarter General Moinier’s column was advancing. One day — two days perhaps — three days at the most, and it would be here at the Bab Segma. There was little time!

  He turned to find Marguerite’s eyes swimming in tears.

  “Paul, can nothing be done to give you back your own place?”

  “Nothing, Marguerite. Let us face it frankly! I went to Headquarters and warned them. Therefore I knew the danger. All the more, therefore, my place that night was with my company. Nothing can get over that.”

  Marguerite with a sob buried her face in her hands.

  “What I have cost you, Paul!”

  “What you have given me, Marguerite!” he replied, and fell into a silence. When he spoke to her again he spoke with his eyes averted from her face, lest she should read more than he meant her to in his.

  “Of course, Marguerite, you have done no wrong. . . . We have got to consider that, my dear. There isn’t really any reason why you should pay too. You wanted to take the risk. . . .”

  “The certainty, Paul, as it turned out. I should not be in the sunshine on this roof now if you had listened to me,” she interrupted; but Paul was not to be led aside.

  “What I mean is that you are not responsible. I am, I alone. Therefore, there’s no reason why you should cut yourself off from all the things which make life lovely,” he continued. “For it means that, my dear. All the things which make life lovely will go.”

  “Except one,” said Marguerite, quietly, “and that one outweighs all the rest.”

  Still Paul would not turn to her.

  “Think well, Marguerite!” and he spoke without stirring, in a level, toneless voice, so that no spark of his desire might kindle her to a sacrifice which, after days, monotonous and lonely, would lead her bitterly to regret. “Think carefully! You can travel in a little while to the coast. You can go home. No one can gainsay you. You will not be poor any more. In a few years you will be able to look back upon all this as a dream. . . .”

  “Don’t, Paul!” she said, in a low voice. “You hurt me. You make me ashamed. How could I go home and live, leaving you here?”

  But what hurt and shamed her most, she could not tell him. It was the knowledge that this hero of hers, this — her man who could do no wrong, had done such wrong for her that he was now an outcast who must dodge and duck his head, and slink unrecognized in the shadows. Her pain, however, was evident enough in the quiver of her voice and the tight clasp of her hand upon his arm.

  “Look at me, Paul!”

  She waited until he had turned, and her great eyes, dewy and tender, rested upon his.

  “Where you go, I go. That was settled for us at the Villa Iris on the night we met, perhaps even before that.”

  Paul argued no more. He was kneeling in front of her upon a cushion. He took her two hands, and, lifting them, he bowed his head and pressed the palms against his face.

  “Then let us go down and make our plans,” he said. “For what we do, we must do very quickly.”

  His urgency startled her.

  “But this house is not known. We are safe here!”

  Paul glanced again towards the east. He had the look of the hunted.

  “There’s a man drawing nearer to us every minute who will rake through Fez with a fine-tooth comb to find out what has become of me,” he said.

  “An enemy?” Marguerite asked, in dismay.

  “No; my friend, Gerard de Montignac. He is on Moinier’s staff.”

  “But he will remain your friend,” cried Marguerite, “even if he—”

  Paul Ravenel completed the sentence for her.

  “Discovers that I deserted. Not he! Perhaps, just because he was my friend, he would be harder than any other.”

  Underneath the good-fellowship, the fun, the delight in the gaieties and ornaments of life, Gerard de Montignac had all the hard practical logic of the French character. Certain things are not permissible. For those who do them there is a law, and that is the end of the matter. And at the very head of the things that are not permissible is the tampering with the military oath.

  “Friendship will lead Gerard to search for me in every corner,” said Paul. That was the danger. For if Gerard stumbled upon the truth i
n his search, the friend would turn straightway into the hunter.

  Paul followed Marguerite down the stairs, and they talked earnestly for a long while. Then Paul arranged his haik about his turban, slipped his djellaba of wool over his linen caftan, and, going out, was very busy in Fez all that day.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  Captain Laguessière’s Report

  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.