A pack of clouds was threatening in the west, but just now the city glittered in the sunlight like a jewel, with its hanging gardens and high terraces, its white houses huddling down the hillside like a flock of sheep, and the bright green tiles of its mosques. Paul and Marguerite never tired of this aspect of the lovely city, shut within its old crumbling walls and musical with the rushing noise of its many rivers. But to-day they saw it as they had never seen it before. For the roofs were crowded with women in their coloured robes of gauze and bright scarves, who danced and screamed, and climbed from one house to another on little ladders in such a frenzy of excitement that the eyes were dazzled and the ears deafened. Paul turned towards the north. Upon the roof of one house men were breaking through with axes and picks, whilst others flung down rags and sticks which had been soaked in paraffin and lighted, through the holes into the rooms below.
“I think that’s the house of the French veterinary surgeon,” said Paul; and from all about that house rose a continuous rattle of firing.
“Look!” said Paul, and he nodded to the south. Here there was a gap between the houses, and Marguerite could see far below a tumble-down stone bridge built in a steep arch across a stream. As she looked, a wild horde of men swarmed upon the bridge, capering and yelling.
“There are soldiers amongst them,” said Marguerite. “I can see their rifles and their bandoliers.”
“Yes, the Askris who have revolted,” answered Paul, and suddenly he covered Marguerite’s eyes with the palm of his hand. “Don’t look!” But Marguerite had already seen, and she sank down behind the parapet with a moan. In the midst of that wild procession some rifles with bayonets fixed were held aloft, and on one of the bayonets the trunk and the limbs of a man were impaled. The head was carried last of all, and upon a pole taller than the bayonets, a head black with blood, like a negro’s, on which a gold-laced kêpi was derisively cocked.
Paul swore underneath his breath.
“One of my brothers,” he whispered. “Oh, my God,” and dropping his head into his hands, he rocked his body to and fro in an agony of remorse.
Marguerite touched him on the shoulder.
“Paul, there’s a carbine in your room.”
“It would be fatal to use it.”