The Winding Stair

by A. E. W. Mason

Gerard sent a messenger down with a new order to Laguessière at the gate and waited on the seat until it had been carried out, and Laguessière had ridden to his side. The two officers lunched with the Basha and his notables in the big house and drank the five cups of tea with them afterwards.

“I will now ride with you through the town,” said Gerard to the Basha. “You shall tell me of the houses and of those who live in them. And you shall take me into those I wish, so that I may speak to them and assure them of our friendship.”

“That will be an excellent thing,” replied the Basha.

Gerard kept a sergeant and a small guard of soldiers with him, and with the Basha on his mule beside him he rode down on the left side of the town. For on this side only, he had seen, were there any houses of importance. The rest of the town was made up of hovels and little cottages. The three chief men who rode with the Basha pointed out their own residences with pride; the owners of others were described, and at each of them Gerard smiled and said he was content. They made thus a complete circuit of the city.

“Your Excellency has not thought fit to enter any one of the houses,” said the Basha with a smile of reproach. Gerard led him a little apart.

“I will make good that omission now,” he replied. “There was one which we passed. You did not speak of it at all. Yet it was a good house, a fine house, finer almost than any except your Excellency’s own.”

The Basha was apparently mystified. He could not remember.

“I think that I can find the house again,” said Gerard. “I hope that I shall be able to. For it attracted me.” He looked the Basha in the eyes. “That is the house which I wish to enter and whose owner I wish to see.”

Finality was in Gerard’s voice as clearly as in his words. The Basha bowed to it.

“It is for your Excellency to give orders here. We are in God’s hands,” he said, and he drew a step nearer to Gerard de Montignac. “It is permitted to dismiss my friends now to their homes? Si Tayeb Reha, whom we shall visit, will not be prepared for so many.”