“You will send this by one of your men immediately to Captain Laguessière at the gate.”
“Very well, my Commandant,” and the sergeant went out of the room.
Gerard turned to the Basha.
“I have sent an order to remove the posts from the neighbourhood of the Mosque, and to throw open the gates so that men may go out and in as they will.”
The Basha expressed his thanks. There would be no trouble. The people of Mulai Idris were very good people, not like those scoundrels from the Forest of Mamora, and quite devoted to the French.
“Since this morning,” Gerard answered with a smile. “We shall have much to say to one another to-morrow morning, in a spirit of help and goodwill. But I beg you to leave me now, so that I may talk for a little while privately with Si Tayeb Reha. For I have come now to the end of this day’s work.”
Si Tayeb Reha bowed gravely. It was the only movement he had made since he had spoken his words of welcome upon Gerard’s first entrance into the room.
The Basha took his leave, went downstairs and mounted his mule.
“We are all in God’s hands,” he said, and he rode slowly away towards his house. Within the room the two men stood looking at each other in silence.
