The little tower he spoke of carried a clock and was placed not directly over the main gate, but to the side above the offices of the time-keepers and accountants.
"I suppose," he added, "Rhoda Polly is coming. If so, don't let her fire, and, of course, don't fire yourself. You are the watch, so keep all dark above. Not a light, not a cigarette. And when Rhoda Polly comes, make her stay behind those sand-bags in the corner. I hiked a few up on purpose for her."
"I know nothing about it," I asserted, "I never thought of it for an instant. If Rhoda Polly comes it will not be because I asked her."
He looked at me with a slight contemptuous grin.
"Do not worry yourself," he said; "if Rhoda Polly wants to come she will come, and neither you will entice her, nor her father forbid her."
And he went his way.
* * * * *
I watched the wide Cours of Aramon, white under the moon, with its plane trees casting inky shadows on the flat stones and trampled earth. A silence had fallen upon the streets that opened on it, and no lights showed from the houses. The anarchists knew the value of darkness as well as we. But for a while the moon continued to block them. The sky filled and as regularly emptied of great white clouds, charioting up from the Mediterranean like angelic harvest-wains.
I did not see anything worth reporting from the top of the clock-tower, nor hear anything except a distant hammering. An intense quiet reigned over the town of Aramon-les-Ateliers. I saw no new conflagrations. The old were extinct, and no yelling mobs poured out towards the well-to-do suburbs. The Extremists of the Commune had withdrawn their sentries and outposts—at least from within sight of the defences of the works.
Jack Jaikes argued that this alone showed that they were plotting mischief.