“It is easier now,” he answered. “The knife was clean.”
She made a sling of his arm and sent him away. She dressed quickly, wondering how that wound had been inflicted and why he wished not to explain it. Surely he had not gone out whilst she slept? Surely there had been no attack upon the house? No! But she was plunged now into a world of mystery and fear, and she wrung her hands in an impotent despair.
They took their breakfast in a room upon the first floor, Paul asking questions as to how far the house was provisioned, and Marguerite answering almost at random, whilst the cries of the women rang shrill overhead.
“We can always send Selim out,” he added.
“We will send him out, Paul,” she exclaimed. “Do you know what has been troubling me? We haven’t a window upon any street. We are here at the bottom of a well with nothing but our ears to warn us of danger. We can see nothing.”
Paul looked at her anxiously. She was nervous, the flutter of her hands feverish, and her voice running up and down the scale as though she had no control over it. Paul reached across the table and laid his hand upon her arm.
“You poor little girl!” he said gently. “These are trying days. But there won’t be many. The wireless here will have got into touch already with Moinier’s column near Meknes. The troops, too, at Dar-Debibagh may do something,” and ever so slightly his voice faltered when he spoke of the troops, yet not so slightly but that Marguerite noticed it. “They have some guns,” he went on hurriedly, and again Marguerite noticed the hurry, the desire to cover up and hide that little spasm of pain which had stabbed him when he thought of his men. “Yes, the guns!” he said. “There will be an end to that infernal twittering on the roof tops when the guns begin to talk.”
“Paul, you should have been with your men,” said Marguerite, and he answered her with a kind of violent obstinacy which drew her eyes in one swift glance to his face. “I am on leave.”
He changed his tone, however, immediately.
“We will send Selim into the town for news,” he said cheerfully, “and we will go up on to the roof.”
Selim was bidden to knock twice, and, after a tiny interval, once more upon his return. Paul stood behind the door listening to make sure that the tunnel was empty before he opened it. Then he let him go, and locked and barred the door again.