“Wait!” he cried, in a sharp, loud voice; and in a moment he was standing in front of her with a look of horror in his eyes. “The little pistol, which Paul took away from you and gave you back only on your promise—where is it?”
Marguerite neither moved nor answered him.
“It is there,” he cried, pointing to where her hand rested within her belt. It was that bedrabbled woman in the spangled skirt who had prophesied it. Henriette, yes, Henriette! It was strange over how many years that poor waif’s words had reached and with what effect. “No!” he cried. “You must go your ways. I’ll not have that upon my soul the day I die,” and he turned from her and rushed from the room, and in a few moments Marguerite heard the sound of a horse galloping away down the cobbled street as though its rider had no thought for his neck.
Gerard de Montignac talked for many hours the next day with the Basha in the house at the city’s top. But neither he nor the Basha spoke once of Si Tayeb Reha. They came to a good understanding, and Gerard rode back to his camp, his work in Mulai Idris done. He sat in his camp chair outside his tent that night watching the few lights upon the hillside go out one after the other and Mulai Idris glimmer, unsubstantial, as the silver city of a dream.
Gerard had carried off a small sort of triumph which would mean many good marks in the books of his great commander. But he was only thinking to-night of the two outcasts in the house on the city wall. Whither would they seek a refuge now that the gates of Mulai Idris were to stand open to the world? And was it worth their while? Marguerite’s haunted face and Paul Ravenel burrowing deeper and deeper into obscurity! Gerard turned to Laguessière, who was smoking at his side.
“Walk in the crowd, my friend! It is always less dangerous to walk in the crowd. Well, let us turn in, for we start early to-morrow.”
In the morning the tents were gone and Gerard’s column was continuing its march through the Zarhoun.
CHAPTER XXII
The Splendid Throw
What had happened between the moment when Gerard de Montignac rode away from the door of Si Tayeb Reha’s house the first time and the moment when the pistol-shot rang out? It had all been Marguerite Lambert’s idea—a despairing clutch at some faint and far-off possibility, hardly a hope, yet worth putting to the proof. She had heard every word which Gerard had spoken. She had seen the revolver laid upon the table. She had seen even more than that. For when Gerard had gone from the room, Paul had taken the revolver at once in his hands. It would be a very little while before the sergeant noticed that Gerard’s revolver was missing from its pouch. He had not even time to write more than one “good-bye” to Marguerite. There were good friends who would look after her—the Basha himself, Selim his own servant.