The Sea Hawk and Captain Blood. Rafael Sabatini

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 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.