“To-night, probably. To-morrow, certainly.”
“And you can trust your friend’s word?”
“As I would trust yours,” said Paul.
Marguerite drew closer to her lover and huddled against him. He put his arm about her. She was trembling. The fun of the masquerade was over. She wondered now how without fear she could have wandered with her black servant through the narrow, crowded markets and in those deep, maze-like streets; she pictured to herself the men; furtive, sleek Fasi; wild creatures from the hills with long muskets gleaming with mother-of-pearl; brawny men of the people, and she painted their faces with the colours and the fire of fury and fanaticism. This little house shut in and crowded about with a thousand houses! She had thought of it as a secret palace hidden away in the uncharted centre of a maze. Now it seemed to her a trap set in a jungle of tigers—a trap in which she and Paul were caught. And her thoughts suddenly took a turn. No, only she was in that trap.
She listened, turning her face upwards to the open roof. The city was still quiet.
“Paul, there are other Christians scattered in houses in the town.”
“Yes.”
“Couldn’t you give a warning? So that troops from the camp might be hurried into the town? Leave your uniform here! Dress in your djellaba and your Moorish clothes. You can reach headquarters—”
“I have already been there. They will not believe,” said Paul.
Marguerite thought for a little while, summoning her strength to assist her, and the memory of the great debt she owed her lover.