“What is the time, Paul?”
“A little past one.”
“So late?”
“I let you sleep. There was no disturbance. The first shot waked you.”
“I will be quick,” she said, or rather began to say. For the words, half-uttered, were frozen upon her lips. Such a din, so shrill, so menacing and strange, burst out above their heads that Marguerite cowered down under it as under the threat of a blow. She had never heard the like of it, she hoped never to hear the like of it again; yet she was to hear it now for days—the swift repetition of one strident note, swelling and falling in a pæan of wild inhuman triumph. Marguerite imagined all the birds of prey in the world wheeling and screaming above the city; or a thousand thin voices shrieking in a madhouse; you—you—you—you—you—the piercing clamour ran swift as the clacking of a mitrailleuse, and with a horrid ferocity which made the girl’s blood run cold.
“Paul,” she said, “what is it?”
“The women on the roofs.”
“Oh!”
Marguerite shuddered as she listened, clutching tight her lover’s arm. Such a promise of cruelty was in those shrill cries as made Marguerite think of the little automatic pistol in the drawer of her table as a talisman which she must henceforth carry close to her hand. She felt that even if she escaped from the peril of these days, she could never walk again in the narrow streets between the blind houses without the chill of a great fear. Her clasp tightened upon her lover’s arm and he winced sharply. Marguerite looked up into his face, and saw that his lips were pressed close together to prevent a cry of pain.
“Paul!” she said wonderingly. She loosened her clasp and turned back the sleeve of his djellaba. Beneath it, his forearm was roughly but tightly bandaged. “Oh, my dear,” she cried, in a voice of compunction, “what happened to you whilst I slept? You are wounded—and for me! Must I always do you harm?” and she beat her hands together in her distress.