Here no high-sounding phrase of Faith would answer. And explanation was unavoidable, and he was conscious that he could not afford one that did not go a little lame.
"Why, as to that," said he, "these prisoners were wrested from the first house upon which we came, and their capture occasioned some alarm. Moreover, it was night-time when we landed, and I dared not adventure the lives of my followers by taking them further from the ship and attacking a village which might have risen to cut off our good retreat."
The frown remained stamped upon the brow of Asad, as Marzak slyly observed.
"Yet Othmani," said he, "urged thee to fall upon a slumbering village all unconscious of thy presence, and thou didst refuse."
Asad looked up sharply at that, and Sakr-el-Bahr realized with a tightening about the heart something of the undercurrents at work against him and all the pains that had been taken to glean information that might be used to his undoing.
"Is it so?" demanded Asad, looking from his son to his lieutenant with that lowering look that rendered his face evil and cruel.
Sakr-el-Bahr took a high tone. He met Asad's glance with an eye of challenge.
"And if it were so my lord?" he demanded.
"I asked thee is it so?"
"Ay, but knowing thy wisdom I disbelieved my ears," said Sakr-el-Bahr. "Shall it signify what Othmani may have said? Do I take my orders or am I to be guided by Othmani? If so, best set Othmani in my place, give him the command and the responsibility for the lives of the Faithful who fight beside him." He ended with an indignant snort.
"Thou art over-quick to anger," Asad reproved him, scowling still
"And by the Head of Allah, who will deny my right to it? Am I to conduct such an enterprise as this from which I am returned laden with spoils that might well be the fruits of a year's raiding, to be questioned by a beardless stripling as to why I was not guided by Othmani?"
He heaved himself up and stood towering there in the intensity of a passion that was entirely simulated. He must bluster here, and crush down suspicion with whorling periods and broad, fierce gesture.
"To what should Othmani have guided me?" he demanded scornfully. "Could he have guided me to more than I have this day laid at thy feet? What I have done speaks eloquently with its own voice. What he would have had me do might well have ended in disaster. Had it so ended, would the blame of it have fallen upon Othmani? Nay, by Allah! but upon me. And upon me rests then the credit, and let none dare question it without better cause."
Now these were daring words to address to the tyrant Asad, and still more daring was the tone, the light hard eyes aflash and the sweeping gestures of contempt with which they were delivered. But of his ascendancy over the Basha there was no doubt. And here now was proof of it.
Asad almost cowered before his fury. The scowl faded from his face to be replaced by an expression of dismay.
"Nay, nay, Sakr-el-Bahr, this tone!" he cried.
Sakr-el-Bahr, having slammed the door of conciliation in the face of the Basha, now opened it again. He became instantly submissive.
"Forgive it," he said. "Blame the devotion of thy servant to thee and to the Faith he serves with little reck to life. In this very expedition was I wounded nigh unto death. The livid scar of it is a dumb witness to my zeal. Where are thy scars, Marzak?"
Marzak quailed before the sudden blaze of that question, and Sakr-el-Bahr laughed softly in contempt.
"Sit," Asad bade him. "I have been less than just."
"Thou art the very fount and spring of justice, O my lord, as this thine admission proves," protested the corsair. He sat down again, folding his legs under him. "I will confess to you that being come so near to England in that cruise of mine I determined to land and seize one who some years ago did injure me, and between whom and me there was a score to settle. I exceeded my intentions in that I carried off two prisoners instead of one. These prisoners," he ran on, judging that the moment of reaction in Asad's mind was entirely favourable to the preferment of the request he had to make, "are not in the bagnio with the others. They are still confined aboard the carack I seized."
"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 sk. 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.
CHAPTER 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