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 stopped 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.