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

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СКАЧАТЬ Frenchwoman. I will send her to you.”

      Arden was perplexed. It seemed extraordinary that in a little village in a remote and unusually lawless district of Morocco there should be a French blanchisseuse. But he made no comment, and spread out his wares upon the ground. In a few moments a woman appeared. She had the Arab face, the Arab colour. But she stood unconcernedly before Arden, and said in Arabic:

      “I am the Frenchwoman. Give me the clothes you want washing.”

      Arden reached behind him for the bundle. He addressed her in French, but she shook her head and carried the bundle away. Her place was taken by another, a very old, dark woman, who was accompanied by a youth carrying a closed basket.

      “Pigeons,” said the old woman. “Good, fat, live pigeons.”

      Arden was fairly tired of that national food by this time, and waved her away.

      “Very well,” said she. She took the basket from the youth, placed it on the ground, and opened the lid. Then she clapped her hands and the pigeons flew out. As they rose into the air she laughed, and cried out in English—“One, two, three, and away!”

      Arden was fairly startled.

      “What words are those?” he exclaimed.

      “English,” the old woman replied in Arabic. “I am the Englishwoman.”

      And the men of the village who were clustered round the shelter agreed, as though nothing could be more natural:

      “Yes, she is the Englishwoman.”

      “And what do the words mean?”

      The old woman shrugged her shoulders.

      “My father used them just as I did,” she said. She spoke with a certain pride in the possession of those five uncomprehended words. “He learned them from his father. I do not know what they mean.”

      It was mystifying enough to Arden that, in a country where hardly a Moor of a foreign tribe, and certainly no Europeans, had ever been known to penetrate, there should be a Frenchwoman who knew no French, and an Englishwoman with five words of English she did not understand.

      But there was more than this to startle Arden. He had heard those same words spoken once before, by a Moorish boy who had declared himself to be an Englishman, and that Moorish boy had murdered his friend Challoner.

      Arden glanced carelessly at the youth who stood by the old woman’s side.

      “That is your son?” said he.

      “Yes. That is Dimoussi.”

      Dimoussi’s cheeks wore the shadow of a beard. He had grown.

      Arden could not pretend to himself that he recognised the boy who had sprung up from the asphodel-bushes a few miles from Mulai Idris.

      He bethought himself of a way to test his suspicions. He took from his wares an old rusty pistol and began to polish it. A firearm he knew to be a lure to any Moor. Dimoussi drew nearer. Arden paid no attention, but continued to polish his pistol. A keen excitement was gaining on him, but he gave no sign. At last Dimoussi reached out his hand. Arden placed the pistol in it. Dimoussi turned the pistol over, and gave it back.

      “It is no good.”

      Arden laughed.

      “There is no better pistol in Agurai,” said he contemptuously. In his ears there was the sound of Challoner’s voice repeating and repeating: “He shot me with a brass-barrelled pistol—a brass-barrelled pistol.”

      The contempt in his tone stung Dimoussi.

      “I have a better,” said he, and at that the old woman touched him warningly on the arm. Dimoussi stopped at once, and the couple moved away.

      Arden wondered whether this was the end. There was a chance that it was not. Dimoussi might return to compare his pistol with Arden’s, and to establish its superiority. Arden waited all the evening in a strong suspense; and at ten o’clock, when he was alone, Dimoussi stepped noiselessly into the shelter, and laid his brass-barrelled pistol on the ground in the light of the lamp.

      “It is better than yours. It comes from Agadhir, in the Sus country, where the best pistols are made. See, those letters prove it.”

      Arden had no doubt that he had now Challoner’s murderer sitting at his side. But he looked at the letters on the pistol-barrel to which Dimoussi pointed. The letters were in English, and made up the name “Bennett.” There was also engraved upon the brass of the barrel “London.” The pistol was an old horse-pistol of English make. Even its period was clear to Arden. For above the lion and the crown was the letter C. Arden pointed to those marks.

      “What do they mean?”

      “They are charms to prevent it missing.”

      Arden said nothing. His thoughts were busy on other matters. This pistol was a pistol of the time of Charles II, of the time of the Tangier siege.

      “How long have you had it?” he asked.

      “My father owned it before me.”

      “And his father before him?”

      “Very likely. I do not know.”

      Arden’s excitement was increasing. He began to see dim, strange possibilities. Suppose, he reasoned, that this pistol had travelled up to Mequinez in the possession of an English prisoner. Suppose that by some chance the prisoner had escaped and wandered; and suddenly he saw something which caught his breath away. He bent down and examined the brass covering to the heel of the butt. Upon that plate there was an engraved crest. Yes! and the crest was Challoner’s!

      Arden kept his face bent over the pistol. Questions raced through his mind. Had that pistol belonged to Luke Challoner, who had turned renegade two hundred years ago? Had he married in his captivity? Had his descendants married again, until all trace of their origin was lost except this pistol and five words of English, and the name “Englishwoman”? Ah! but if so, who was the Frenchwoman?

      It was quite intelligible to Arden why Dimoussi had slain Challoner. Fanaticism was sufficient reason. But supposing Dimoussi were a descendant of Luke! It was all very strange. Challoner was the last of his family, the last of his name. Had the family name been extinguished by a Challoner?

      Arden returned to Mequinez the next day, and, making search, through the help of the Bashaw, who was his friend, amongst documents which existed, he at last came upon the explanation.

      The renegades, who were made up not merely of English prisoners of Tangier, but of captives of many nationalities taken by the Salee pirates, had, about the year 1700, become numerous enough to threaten Mequinez. Consequently the Sultan had one fine morning turned them all out of the town through the Renegade’s Gate and bidden them go south and found a city for themselves.

      They had founded Agurai, they had been attacked by the Beni M’tir; with diminishing numbers they had held their own; they had intermarried with the natives; and now, two hundred years later, all that remained of them were the Frenchwoman, Dimoussi, and his mother.

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