The Times Red Cross Story Book by Famous Novelists Serving in His Majesty's Forces. Various

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      “Two of my ancestors were prisoners here in Mequinez,” he said. “They were captured together at the fall of the Henrietta Fort in 1680, and brought up here to work on Mulai Ismail’s palace. It’s strange to think that they dragged these stones down this very track. I don’t suppose that the country has changed at all. They must have come up from the coast by the same road we followed, passed the same villages, and heard the pariah dogs bark at night just as we have done.”

      Arden glanced in surprise at his companion.

      “I did not know that. I suppose that is the reason why you wish to visit Mequinez?”

      Challoner’s sudden desire to travel inland to this town had been a mystery to Arden. He knew Challoner well, and knew him for a dilettante, an amiable amateur of the arts, a man always upon the threshold of a new interest, but never by any chance on the other side of the door, and, above all, a stay-at-home. Now the reason was explained.

      “Yes,” Challoner admitted. “I was anxious to see Mequinez.”

      “Both men came home when peace was declared, I suppose?” said Arden.

      “No. Only one came home, James Challoner. The other, Luke, turned renegade to escape the sufferings of slavery, and was never allowed to come back. The two men were brothers.

      “I discovered the story by chance. I was looking over the papers in the library one morning, in order to classify them, and I came across a manuscript play written by a Challoner after the Restoration. Between the leaves of the play an old, faded letter was lying. It had been written by James, on his return, to Luke’s wife, telling her she would never see Luke again. I will show you the letter this evening.”

      “That’s a strange story,” said Arden. “Was nothing heard of Luke afterwards?”

      “Nothing. No doubt he lived and died in Mequinez.”

      Challoner looked back as he spoke. Dimoussi was still standing amongst the bushes watching the travellers recede from him. His plan was completely formed. There would be a djehad to-morrow, and the honour of it would belong to Dimoussi of Agurai.

      He felt in the leathern wallet which swung at his side upon a silk orange-coloured cord. He had ten dollars in that wallet. He walked in the rear of the travellers to Mequinez, and reached the town just before sunset. He went at once to the great square by the Renegade’s Gate, where the horses are brought to roll in the dust on their way to the watering fountain.

      There were many there at the moment; and the square was thick with dust like a mist.

      But, through the mist, in a corner, Dimoussi saw the tents of the travellers, and, in front of the tents, from wall to wall, a guard of soldiers sitting upon the ground in a semicircle.

      Dimoussi was in no hurry. He loitered there until darkness followed upon the sunset, and the stars came out.

      He saw lights burning in the tents, and, through the open doorway one, the man who had spoken to him, Arden, stretched upon a lounge-chair, reading a paper which he held in his hand.

      Dimoussi went once more to the Fondak Henna, and made up for the wakeful night he had passed here with a Moor of the Sherarda tribe by sleeping until morning with a particular soundness.

II

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      The paper which Arden was reading was the faded letter written at “Berry Street, St. James’s” on April 14, 1684, by the James Challoner who had returned to the wife of Luke Challoner who had turned renegade.

      Arden took a literal copy of that letter; and it is printed here from that copy:

      “Berry Street, St. James’s,

      “April 14, 1684.

      “My dear Pamela,

      “I have just now come back from Whitehall, where I was most graciously received by his Majestie, who asked many questions about our sufferings among the Moors, and promised rewards with so fine a courtesy and condescension that my four years of slavery were all forgotten. Indeed, my joy would have been rare, but I knew that the time would come when I must go back to my lodging and write to you news that will go near to break your heart. Why did my brother not stay quietly at home with his wife, at whose deare side his place was? But he must suddenlie leave his house, and come out to his younger brother at Tangier, who was never more sorry to see any man than I was to see Luke. For we were hard pressed: the Moors had pushed their trenches close under our walls, and any night the city might fall. And now I am come safely home, though there is no deare heart to break for me, and Luke must for ever stay behind. For that is the bitter truth. We shall see noe more of Luke, and you, my deare, are widowed and yet no widow. Oh, why did you let him goe, knowing how quick he is to take fire, and how quick to cool? I, too, am to blame, for I kept him by me out of my love for him, and that was his undoing.

      “In May ... I commanded the Henrietta Fort, and Luke was a volunteer with me. For five days we were attacked night and day, we were cut off from the town, there was no hope that way, and all our ammunition and water consumed, and most of us wounded or killed. So late on the night of the 13th we were compelled to surrender upon promise of our lives. Luke and I were carried up to Mequinez, and there set to build a wall, which was to stretch from that town to Morocco city, so that a blind man might travel all those many miles safely without a guide. I will admit that our sufferings were beyond endurance. We slept underground in close, earth dungeons, down to which we must crawl on our hands and knees; and at day we laboured in the sunlight, starved and thirsting, no man knowing when the whip of the taskmaster would fall across his back, and yet sure that it would fall. Luke was not to be blamed—to be pitied rather. He was of a finer, more delicate nature. What was pain to us was anguish and torture to him. One night I crept down into my earth alone, and the next day he walked about Mequinez with the robes of a Moor. He had turned renegade.

      “I was told that the Bashaw had taken him into his service, but I never had the opportunity of speech with him again, although I once heard his voice. That was six months afterwards, when peace had been re-established between his Maj. and the Emperor. Part of the terms of the peace was that the English captives should be released and sent down to the coast, but the renegade must stay behind. I pleaded with the Bashaw that Luke might be set free too, but could by no means persuade him. We departed from Mequinez one early morning, and on the city wall stood the Bashaw’s house; and as I came opposite to it I saw a hand wave farewell from a narrow window-slit, and heard Luke’s voice cry, ‘Farewell!’ bravely, Pamela, bravely!

      “James Challoner.”

      When Arden had finished this letter he walked out of the tent, passed through the semicircle of sentinels, and stood in front of the Renegade’s Gate. There Challoner joined him, and both men looked at the great arch for a while without speaking. It rose black against a violet and starlit sky. The pattern of its coloured tiles could not be distinguished; but even in the darkness something of its exquisite delicacy could be perceived.

      “Luke Challoner very likely worked upon that arch,” said Arden. “Yet, as I read that letter, it seemed so very human, very near, as though it had been written yesterday.”

      “I wonder what became of him?” said Challoner. “From some house on the СКАЧАТЬ