“I could not rest quiet in my grave if my wishes written there were not fulfilled—if misfortune struck where there is no need that it should strike. A voice would call to me, in sorrow and distress, and I should hear it and stir in my grave though I was buried metres deep in clay. It is a promise?”
“Yes.”
Si El Hadj Arrifa struck a bell and a man came out to him from the servants’ quarters.
“All is quiet, Mohammed?”
“Up till this hour.”
“His Excellency’s horse then! You will go in front of him with a lantern as far as the Bab Segma. His Excellency returns to the camp at Dar-Debibagh.”
The servant’s eyes opened wide in fear. He looked from his master to his master’s guest, as though both of them had been smitten with madness. Then he went out upon his business, and the two men in the court heard the fall of the bars and the grinding of the lock of the door.
“I will put this away,” said Si El Hadj Arrifa, balancing the letter in his hands; and he went upstairs to his own room. When he came down Paul was standing in the patio, with his cap upon his head.
“I will bid you good-bye here my friend,” said Paul, but his host, terrified though he was, would not so far fall short of his duties. He went out with Paul Ravenel to the street. The city all about them was very quiet. There was no light anywhere but the light in the big lantern which Mohammed was carrying in one hand whilst he held the bridle of Paul’s horse with the other. Paul mounted quickly and without a word. Si El Hadj Arrifa stood in the doorway of his house. He watched the lantern dwindle to a spark, he heard the sharp loud crack of the horse’s shoes upon the cobbles soften and grow dull. He waited until the spark had vanished, and, a little time afterwards, the beat of the hoofs had ceased. And still there was no sign of any trouble, no distant clamour as of men gathering, no shrill cries from the women on the roofs. He went back into his house.
