Chapter II

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 city wall he waved his hand to his brother, and cried ’Farewell!’ bravely. I wonder what became of him?”

“I will take a photograph of that gate to-morrow,” said Arden.