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 of his grand serieux. He had been and he was not. No doubt these two men at the mouth of the tunnel had seen their opportunity and seized it. Paul Ravenel had been the first victim of the massacre, no doubt. Yet Paul—to be taken unawares—with Si El Hadj Arrifa’s earnest invitation to remain sheltered in his house only within this hour uttered—Paul, in a word, warned! That was not like the Paul Ravenel he knew, at all! And on the next morning, following Paul’s route with Mohammed for a guide, and a patrol of soldiers, he discovered the little door.
With a thrill of excitement he ran his hands over the heavy nails.
“Open! Open!” he cried, beating upon the panel with his fists; and pressing his ear against it afterwards, he heard the racket echo emptily through the house.
“Open! Open!” he cried again, and, turning to the sergeant of the patrol, bade him find a heavy beam. Even with that used as a battering ram it took the patrol a good half hour to smash in the little door, so stout it was, so strong the bolts and bars. But the work was done at last. Gerard darted in and found himself in a house, small but exquisite in its decorations, its thick cushions of linen worked with the old silk embroideries of Fez, its white-tiled floors spread with carpets of the old Rabat patterns. But from roof to court the house was empty.
Gerard went through every room with the keen eye of a possible tenant with an order to view; and found precisely nothing. Had he come a week ago, he would have discovered on the upper floors furniture of a completely European make. All that, however, was safely lodged now in a storehouse belonging to Si El Hadj Arrifa, and the upper floors were almost bare. Gerard had left the patio to the last, and whilst he stepped here and there he heard a tinkling sound very familiar to his ears.
“What’s that?” he cried, swinging round.