Once more Marguerite heard the rattle of the medals as the coat was restored, and the Moor cried out: “There will be none alive in Fez this night. Salam aleikum, O man of Meknes!” And a little afterwards the door was slammed and barred.
Paul returned to the court, holding the tunic in his hands. The peril of the last few moments was swept altogether out of his mind. For a moment Marguerite herself was forgotten. He was holding the badge of many years of honourable service, and the shining medals which proved that the service had been of real value to the country he served. All was now wasted and foregone.
“I should make the sacrifice again,” he said obstinately to himself, “if it were to make again. I should! I should!”
But he had not borne to see the tunic and its medals paraded in triumph on the back of one of these assassins through the streets of Fez. When he stopped the Moor and held him back from his companions, his hand had gripped close the revolver hidden in his waistband. Had the man clung to the tunic, Paul would have killed, whatever the risk. The traditions and the whole training of his life had forced his hand. He knew that, as he stood in the silent sunlit patio fondling the stuff of the coat between his fingers, and his heart aching as though some little snake had slipped into his bosom and was feeding there.
“I have done what my father did,” he thought. “I, who set out to atone for him.” And he laughed aloud with so much mockery at his own pretensions that the laughter startled him. “I can plead a different reason. But what of that? I have done what my father did!”
He folded the tunic reverently, and laid it down again in the alcove. As he stood up he was startled by the clatter of something falling overhead and the sharp explosion of a pistol. He looked upwards. The sound had come from behind those curtains where Marguerite was hidden. Had she been watching? Had she seen him fondling the tunic? Had she heard his bitter laughter? Perhaps he had spoken aloud. For a moment his heart stood still. Some words that Henriette had said to him—oh, ever so long ago, in the Villa Iris, flashed back into his mind. “Even if the grand passion comes—oh la, la la!—she will blow her brains out, the little fool!”