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 n............