On the Roof Top
Marguerite drove her two trembling negresses out of the corners into
which they had flown when the house was invaded, stood over them while
they cooked the dinner, and strictly ordered that it should be served
with the proper ceremonies. She dressed herself in her European clothes
and with even more, to-night, of the scrupulous daintiness which was
habitual to her. Paul watched her with a great pride and wonderment.
“How in the world do you know at once what we have to learn?” he asked.
“When people are rattled, routine’s the great remedy. Just doing the
ordinary things at the ordinary hours lifts you along with a sort of
assurance that life is going to be as sane to-morrow as it was
yesterday. But we have men to watch, and they teach us these things.
Where do you get them from?”
“From myself,” answered Marguerite, with a blush upon her cheeks, which
her lover’s praise never failed to provoke. “I had to keep my own little
flag of courage flying if I could.”
At half past nine they heard Selim’s three knocks upon the outer door,
and Paul let him in and brought him to Marguerite in the room opening on
to the patio. He brought with him a budget of black news. A couple of
officers had been dragged from their horses and butchered in the
streets. An engineer and his wife in Fez Djedid had been shot down as
they sat at their luncheon. There had been an attack upon the Hôtel de
France, where the managress and a priest had been slain.
“There is a house in the Tala quarter,” said Paul, “where two veterinary
surgeons and two other officers lodged. I saw men breaking through the
roof to get at them this afternoon.”
“They escaped, Sidi. They let themselves down from a window into an
alley. It is believed that they are hiding in a covered drain.”
“And the four French telegraph operators. They, too, occupied a house in
the Tala.”
Selim had no good tidings to tell of them. The door of their house had
been forced at midday. Throughout the afternoon they had resisted in an
upper room, which they had barricaded, firing with what weapons they had
until their ammunition was exhausted. At seven in the evening a rescue
party had arrived, but only one of them was alive, and he grievously
wounded.
“A rescue party!” asked Paul, wondering whence that party had come.
There was not enough men at the headquarters in the hospital to do more
than protect the quarter of the Consulates, even if they could do that.
“A battalion from Dar-Debibagh forced its way into the city at five
o’clock this afternoon,” said Selim.
Paul’s face took life, his eyes kindled. No one knew better than he the
difficulties which must have hampered that exploit.
“That was well done,” he cried. “Whose battalion?”
The old Algerian soldier replied:
“The Commandant Philipot’s.”
The gladness died out of Paul Ravenel’s face, and he sat in silence
staring at the tiles of the floor. To Marguerite it was as though the
light of a lamp waned and flickered out. She laid her hand upon his.
“That’s your battalion, Paul?”
Paul nodded, and whispered “Yes,” not trusting his voice over much.
“You should have been with it, my dear. But for me you would have led
your company,” she said, remorsefully; and he cried out aloud suddenly
in a voice which she had never heard him use before, a voice rough and
violent and full of pain.
“I am on leave.”
Hearing him, she felt the compunction of one who has carelessly knocked
against a throbbing wound. Her eyes went swiftly to his face. During
these moments Paul Ravenel was off his guard, and she was looking upon a
man in torture.
“The little Praslin will be leading my company,” he said, “and leading
it just as well as I could have done.” He turned again to Selim. “Did
the battalion have trouble to get through?”
“Great trouble, Sidi. The commandant tried to come in by the little gate
in the Aguedal wall and the new gardens of the Sultan. But he was
attacked by a swarm of men issuing from the Segma Gate on his left flank
and by sharp-shooters on the wall itself in front of him.”
“And we taught them to shoot!” cried Paul in exasperation. “The
commandant was held up?”
“Yes, Sidi.”
“What then? He was losing men, and quickly. What did he do?” Paul asked
impatiently. His own men were under fire. He had got to know, and at
once. “Out with it, Selim. What did the Commandant Philipot do?”
“He led his battalion down into the bed of the river Zitoun,” said
Selim, and a long “Oh!” of admiration and relief from Paul welcomed the
manœuvre. He spread before his eyes, in mind, an imaginary map of the
difficult ground at that southwest corner of the city, outside the
walls. Pressed hardly upon his left flank, at the mercy of the riflemen
on the crest of the high, unscalable wall of the Aguedal, Commandant
Philipot, leaving a rear-guard—trust the Commandant Philipot for
that!—had disappeared with his battalion into the earth. Paul chuckled
as he thought of it—the ingenuity and the audacity, too!
“He made for the Bab-el-Hadid?” he said.
“Yes,” answered Selim.
There had been risk, of course, risk of the gravest kind. Out of shot,
the battalion certainly was—out of shot and out of sight. But, on the
other hand, in the deep chasm of the Oued Zitoun it could not see any
more than could its antagonists. If its rear-guard was overwhelmed by
the insurgents from the Segma Gate, if a strong band of tribesmen rode
up to the southern lip of the chasm and caught the battalion floundering
below amongst the boulders and the swollen river! Why, there was an end
of that battalion and, for the moment, of the relief of Fez. But he had
got through—there was the fact. And by no other way and with no smaller
risk could he have got through. Paul Ravenel, watching that unprinted
map upon the floor, over which he bent, had no doubt upon that point. A
great risk nobly taken for a great end, and adroitly imagined! And with
what speed they must have covered that difficult ground!
“Well, the little Praslin would lead very well,” he said aloud, but with
just a hint of effort in his cordiality. “He knows his work.”
“And you are on leave, Paul?”
Marguerite was watching her lover with startled eyes. But Paul noticed
neither her look nor the urgent appeal of her voice. He was away with
his company in the bed of the Oued Zitoun, now stumbling over the great
stones, now flung down headlong by the rush of the rain-swollen torrent
and pressing on again in the hurried march. He sat tracing with his
finger on the tiles the convolutions of the river, the point where the
battalion must leave its shelter and march through the gardens to the
gates—lost to all else. And Marguerite, watching him, caught at any
reason which could reassure her.
Of course, Paul was unconsciously expressing the regret of a true
soldier that his company had gone upon difficult and hazardous service
without him, and a soldier’s interest in a brilliant manœuvre
successfully accomplished. His absorption meant no more than that.
But—but—his cry, “I am on leave,” startled out of him a challenge, an
obstinate defiance, harsh with pain, rang in her ears still, argue as
she might. In spite of herself, an appalling suspicion flickered like
lightning through her mind and went out—and flickered again.
She heard Paul asking questions of Selim and Selim answering. But she
was asking of herself a question which made all other questions of
little significance. If her suspicion were true, could his love for her
remain? Could it live strongly and steadily after so enormous a
sacrifice? Wouldn’t it die in contempt of himself and hatred of her? If
Paul Ravenel had looked at Marguerite Lambert at this moment he would
have seen the haggard dancing girl of the Villa Iris, as he had seen her
under the grape-vine of the balcony with her seven francs clenched in
her hand.
Paul, however, was giving his attention to Selim. The quarter of the
hospitals and the Consulates was now thought to be safe, though the
Moors, uplifted by their success, had planned to attack it that night.
An attempt had been made by a company of Philipot’s battalion to force
the Souk-Ben-Safi and its intricate, narrow streets, but the company had
been driven back. A second company had been sent out to capture and hold
the Bab-el-Mahroud, but it was now beleaguered and fighting for its
life. Another section was at the Bab Fetouh, in the south of the town,
under fire from the small mosque of Tamdert. A good many isolated
Europeans had been rescued from the houses, and brought into the
protected quarter, but Fez, as a whole, was still in the hands of the
insurgents.
At this point Paul Ravenel broke in with a sharp question.
“You spoke to no one of this house?”
Selim shook his head.
“To no one, Sidi.”
“To none of the French soldiers? To no friend of the French? You are
sure, Selim? You are very sure? There were no Europeans to be rescued
from this house? Answer me truthfully!”
Never was question more insistently expressed. Why?—why?—why? . . .
Marguerite found herself asking whilst her heart sank. That their secret
might still be kept, its sweetness preserved for them? No, that reason
was inadequate. Why, then? Because the danger was over? But it was not
over. So much Selim had made very clear. The few troops had been
withdrawn to the protected quarter of the Consulates. The detachments
outside were hard put to it. The city of Fez was still in the hands of
the insurgents. Why then? Why the eagerness that the French should know
nothing of this secret house? Oh, there was an answer, dared she but
listen to it! An answer with consequences as yet only dimly suspected.
If it was the true answer!—Marguerite sat stunned. How was she to get
away quite by herself that she might think her problem out, without
betraying the trouble of her mind to Paul?
It was Paul himself who made escape easy for her. He dismissed Selim and
said to Marguerite:
“I’ll go up on the roof, my dear, for a little while. The rain has
stopped, but, dressed as you are, it wouldn’t be wise for you to come.”
The excuse was feeble, and he spoke looking away from Marguerite—a rare
thing with him. But Marguerite welcomed the excuse and had no eyes for
the shifty look of him as he made it.
“Very well,” she said, in a dull voice, and Paul went quickly up the
stairs.
Selim’s story had moved him to the depths of his soul. He was conscious
of an actual nausea. “I should make the sacrifice again.” He repeated a
phrase which had been growing familiar to him during this day, repeated
it with a stubborn emphasis. But he was beginning to understand dimly
what the sacrifice was to cost him. Soldiering was his business in life.
He was sealed to it. He had known it when he stood in his father’s death
room on the islet off the coast of Spain; and when he sat over Colonel
Vanderfelt’s wine in the dining room looking out upon the moonlit
garden; but never so completely as now when his thoughts were with the
men of his company stumbling in the river bed, and his feet were
dragging up the stairs to the roof.
“I must be alone for a little while, otherwise Marguerite will guess the
truth.”
It was an instinct rather than a formulated thought which drove him
upwards. He dreaded Marguerite’s swift intuitions, that queer way she
had of reaching certainty, cleaving her way to it like a bird through
the air. He drew a long breath as he crept out upon the roof. He was
alone now, and, sinking down upon the cushions underneath the parapet,
he wrestled with his grief, letting it have its way up here in the
darkness so that he might confine it the more surely afterwards. For an
hour on this first night of the revolt he remained alone upon the
roof-top whilst Marguerite, separated from him by the height of the
beleaguered house, sat amongst the lighted candles in the room by the
court, steeling herself to a sacrifice which should equal his.
When she was sure of herself she wrapped a dark cloak about her shining
frock and climbed in her turn to the roof. But she moved very silently,
and when she raised her head above the trap she saw her lover stretched
upon the terrace, his turban thrown aside, his face buried in his arms,
his whole attitude one of almost Oriental grief. He was unaware of her
until she crouched by his side and, with something maternal in the
loving pity of her hands, gently stroked his head.
“Paul!” she whispered, and he sprang swiftly up. She got a glimpse of a
tortured face, and then he dropped by her side and, putting his arms
about her, caught her to his heart.
“My dear! My dear!” he said.
“Paul,” she began, in a breaking voice, but Paul would not listen. He
pointed his arm westwards over the parapet.
“Look!”
In their neighbourhood all was quiet, though here and there a building
was burning near enough to light up from time to time their faces. But
away in the southwest a broad red glare canopied the quarter and flames
leapt and sank.
“What is that?” asked Marguerite, distracted from her purpose.
“The Mellah,” replied Paul. “They have looted and burnt it. It’s the
rule and custom. Whatever the cause of an uprising, the Mellah is the
first to suffer.”
Marguerite had never set foot in that quarter. Paul described it to
her—its dirty and crowded alleys, its blue-washed houses jammed
together and packed with rich treasures and gaudy worthlessness,
gramophones blaring out some comic song of London or Paris, slatternly
women and men, ten thousand of them, and then the bursting in of the
gates.
“And the Jews themselves! What has become of them?” she asked, with a
shudder.
“God knows!”
Unarmed, pounded like sheep within their high walls, they were likely to
have been butchered like sheep, too.
“There’s a small new gate, however, leading to their cemetery. They may
have found that way free,” said Paul, without any confidence. But, as a
fact, they had escaped whilst their houses were being plundered. The
gardens of the Sultan’s Palace, which adjoined, had been swiftly thrown
open to them, and at this very moment they were camping there without
food or money or shelter—except the lucky ones who had made little
family groups in the empty cages of Mulai Hafid’s menagerie between the
lions and the jaguars.
“Paul”—Marguerite began a second time, but now a rattle of firing and a
distant clamour of fierce cries broke out upon their left hand. Paul
Ravenel turned in the direction of the noise eagerly, and as Marguerite
turned with him, once more her attention was arrested. From a
semi-circle of streets a blaze of light across which thick volumes of
smoke drifted, rose above the house-tops, so that the faces of the two
watchers were lit up as by a sunset.
“It is the attack upon the Consulates,” said Paul. “It will fail. There
are troops enough now to hold it.”
On the other side of the city, however, to the north, it was a different
matter. By the Bab-el-Mahroud the French outpost was hard-pressed. Paul
was listening with all his intentness.
“It sounds as if our ammunition was running short,” he said, in a low,
grave voice; and this time Marguerite was not to be denied. Kneeling up,
she caught Paul by the arms as he sat, and turned him toward her. The
light, strong and bright, was sweeping across his face in waves.
“Paul, is it true?” she asked, searching his eyes.
Paul Ravenel had no need to ask what was true; he had no heart to deny
its truth. The thing which most he dreaded had come to pass. Marguerite
knew what he had done. He had been certain that she knew from the moment
when she had laid her hand upon his head.
“Yes,” he answered, meeting her gaze. “It is true.”
“You are not on leave!”
“No.”
“You have deserted!”
Paul’s face twitched with a spasm of pain, but he did not take his eyes
from Marguerite.
“Yes,” he said.
Marguerite shook him gently as one might shake a wayward child.
“But you can’t do that, Paul.”
“I have done it, Marguerite.”
“Oh, Paul—you can’t have understood what you were doing! You can’t have
thought!”
“I have thought of everything.”
“You have sacrificed your honour.”
“I have you.”
“Your career.”
“I have you.”
“You have lost every friend.”
“What do I care about friend’s, Marguerite, when I have you?”
She let go of his arms with such an expression of grief and despair upon
her face as cut him to the heart to see. She bowed her forehead upon the
palms of her hands and burst into tears. Paul drew her close to him,
seeking to comfort her.
“We shall be together, Marguerite, always. Yesterday night, when I
foretold you of these massacres—you took it lightly because we were
together. You seemed to say nothing in the world mattered so long as we
were together.”
“But don’t you see, Paul”—she drew herself away and raised her face,
down which tears were running—“we have been both of us alone
to-night—already. You here on the roof—I in the court below—and we
wanted to be alone, yes, my dear—why deny it, since I know? We wanted
to be alone, each of us with our miserable thoughts. . . . In a little
while you’ll hate me.”
“No,” he said, violently. “That could never be.”
She bent her head over his hands and pressed them to her eyes, wetting
them with her tears.
“Paul,” she whispered between her sobs, “I can’t take such a sacrifice.
Oh, my dear, you should have left me with my seven francs and my broken
bundle on that balcony in Casablanca.”
Paul stooped and kissed her hair.
“Marguerite, I wouldn’t have left you there for anything in the world.
From the moment I saw you there was no world for me, except the world in
which you and I moved step by step and hand-in-hand.”