“There’s a small new gate, however, leading to their cemetery. They may have found that way free,” said Paul, without any confidence. But, as a fact, they had escaped whilst their houses were being plundered. The gardens of the Sultan’s Palace, which adjoined, had been swiftly thrown open to them, and at this very moment they were camping there without food or money or shelter—except the lucky ones who had made little family groups in the empty cages of Mulai Hafid’s menagerie between the lions and the jaguars.
“Paul”—Marguerite began a second time, but now a rattle of firing and a distant clamour of fierce cries broke out upon their left hand. Paul Ravenel turned in the direction of the noise eagerly, and as Marguerite turned with him, once more her attention was arrested. From a semi-circle of streets a blaze of light across which thick volumes of smoke drifted, rose above the house-tops, so that the faces of the two watchers were lit up as by a sunset.
“It is the attack upon the Consulates,” said Paul. “It will fail. There are troops enough now to hold it.”
On the other side of the city, however, to the north, it was a different matter. By the Bab-el-Mahroud the French outpost was hard-pressed. Paul was listening with all his intentness.
“It sounds as if our ammunition was running short,” he said, in a low, grave voice; and this time Marguerite was not to be denied. Kneeling up, she caught Paul by the arms as he sat, and turned him toward her. The light, strong and bright, was sweeping across his face in waves.
“Paul, is it true?” she asked, searching his eyes.
Paul Ravenel had no need to ask what was true; he had no heart to deny its truth. The thing which most he dreaded had come to pass. Marguerite knew what he had done. He had been certain that she knew from the moment when she had laid her hand upon his head.
“Yes,” he answered, meeting her gaze. “It is true.”
“You are not on leave!”
“No.”