“And why is this?” quoth Asad, but without suspicion now.
“Because, my lord, I have a boon to ask in some reward for the service I have rendered.”
“Ask it, my son.”
“Give me leave to keep these captives for myself.”
Asad considered him, frowning again slightly. Despite himself, despite his affection for Sakr-el-Bahr, and his desire to soothe him now that rankling poison of Fenzileh’s infusing was at work again in his mind.
“My leave thou hast,” said he. “But not the law’s, and the law runs that no corsair shall subtract so much as the value of an asper from his booty until the division has been made and his own share allotted him,” was the grave answer.
“The law?” quoth Sakr-el-Bahr. “But thou art the law, exalted lord.”
“Not so, my son. The law is above the Basha, who must himself conform to it so that he be just and worthy of his high office. And the law I have recited thee applies even should the corsair raider be the Basha himself. These slaves of thine must forthwith be sent to the bagnio to join the others that tomorrow all may be sold in the sôk. See it done, Sakr-el-Bahr.”
The corsair would have renewed his pleadings, but that his eye caught the eager white face of Marzak and the gleaming expectant eyes, looking so hopefully for his ruin. He checked, and bowed his head with an assumption of indifference.
“Name thou their price then, and forthwith will I pay it into thy treasury.”
But Asad shook his head. “It is not for me to name their price, but for the buyers,” he replied. “I might set the price too high, and that were unjust to thee, or too low, and that were unjust to others who would acquire them. Deliver them over to the bagnio.”
“It shall be done,” said Sakr-el-Bahr, daring to insist no further and dissembling his chagrin.
Very soon thereafter he departed upon that errand, giving orders, however, that Rosamund and Lionel should be kept apart from the other prisoners until the hour of the sale on the morrow when perforce they must take their place with the rest.
Marzak lingered with his father after Oliver had taken his leave, and presently they were joined there in the courtyard by Fenzileh—this woman who had brought, said many, the Frankish ways of Shaitan into Algiers.
VIII
Mother and Son
Early on the morrow—so early that scarce had the Shehad been recited—came Biskaine-el-Borak to the Basha. He had just landed from a galley which had come upon a Spanish fishing boat, aboard of which there was a young Morisco who was being conducted over seas to Algiers. The news of which the fellow was the bearer was of such urgency that for twenty hours without intermission the slaves had toiled at the oars of Biskaine’s vessel—the capitana of his fleet—to bring her swiftly home.
The Morisco had a cousin—a New-Christian like himself, and like himself, it would appear, still a Muslim at heart—who was employed in the Spanish treasury at Malaga. This man had knowledge that a galley was fitting out for sea to convey to Naples the gold destined for the pay of the Spanish troops in garrison there. Through parsimony this treasure galley was to be afforded no escort, but was under orders to hug the coast of Europe, where she should be safe from all piratical surprise. It was judged that she would be ready to put to sea in a week, and the Morisco had set out at once to bring word of it to his Algerine brethren that they might intercept and capture her.
Asad thanked the young Morisco for his news, bade him be housed and cared for, and promised him a handsome share of the plunder should the treasure galley be captured. That done he sent for Sakr-el-Bahr, whilst Marzak, who had been present at the interview, went with the tale of it to his mother, and beheld her fling into a passion when he added that it was Sakr-el-Bahr had been summoned that he might be entrusted with this fresh expedition, thus proving that all her crafty innuendoes and insistent warnings had been so much wasted labour.
With Marzak following at her heels, she swept like a fury into the darkened room where Asad took his ease.
“What is this I hear, O my lord?” she cried, in tone and manner more the European shrew than the submissive Eastern slave. “Is Sakr-el-Bahr to go upon this expedition against the treasure galley of Spain?”
Reclining on his divan he looked her up and down with a languid eye. “Dost know of any better fitted to succeed?” quoth he.
“I know of one whom it is my lord’s duty to prefer to that foreign adventurer. One who is entirely faithful and entirely to be trusted. One who does not attempt to retain for himself a portion of the booty garnered in the name of Islam.”
“Bah!” said Asad. “Wilt thou talk forever of those two slaves? And who may be this paragon of thine?”
“Marzak,” she answered fiercely, flinging out an arm to drag forward her son. “Is he to waste his youth here in softness and idleness? But yesternight that ribald mocked him with his lack of scars. Shall he take scars in the orchard of the Kasbah here? Is he to be content with those that come from the scratch of a bramble, or is he to learn to be a fighter and leader of the Children of the Faith that
