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.
“All the weapons have been collected. All the gates are held by armed posts. A state of siege is proclaimed so that violence can be dealt with sternly and at once,” he said. But even then he must not put the questions burning on his tongue. France was to remain in Morocco. Very well! Then even in small things must the ways of the country be respected. Gerard had the patience which is the kernel and centre of good manners. He sat through the five brewings of green tea, ceremoniously conversing. Only then did he come to the reason of his visit.
“It has been my good fortune, O, Si El Hadj Arrifa, to bring you excellent news to-night. Would that I could hear news as excellent from you! My friend and your friend, Captain Ravenel, dined with you one night and rode away from your door, and that night he disappeared.”
Si El Hadj Arrifa struck a bell which stood by his side and spoke a word to the negress who answered it. He turned again to Gerard.
“I have sent for my servant Mohammed, who carried the lantern in front of His Excellency’s horse. He shall tell you the story with his own lips.”
Mohammed duly appeared and told the truth—with omissions; how the Captain had fallen behind in the tunnel, how the startled horse had dashed past him, how he had returned and found no sign of the Captain at all, how two men had appeared and he had fled in a panic. But there was no mention of any small door in the angle of the wall.
“We will look at that tunnel by daylight,” said Gerard, when the man had finished, “if, O, Si El Hadj Arrifa, you will lend me your servant.”
He spoke dispiritedly. There seemed very little chance that he would find any trace ............