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Meriem saw and recognized him the instant that he entered the apartment. Her heart leaped in pride and joy at the sight of the noble figure for which it had hungered for so long. "Korak!" she cried. "Meriem!" He uttered the single word as he hurled himself upon the astonished Ali ben Kadin. The three Negresses leaped from their sleeping mats, screaming.
Kadin, who drew the charts for Tebenkof's Atlas of Alaska from the surveys made by the Russian Navigators; Tarantief, who engraved the maps on copper-plate at Sitka; and many of the shipmasters and accountants in the employ of the Company, were the product of the educational institutions of Sitka. In the time of the greatest prosperity there were five schools.
Meriem tried to prevent them from escaping; but before she could succeed the terrified blacks had darted through the hole in the tent wall made by Korak's knife, and were gone screaming through the village. The Killer's fingers closed once upon the throat of the hideous Ali. Once his knife plunged into the putrid heart and Ali ben Kadin lay dead upon the floor of his tent.
He was trying to fix in his own mind some form of torture that would gratify his rage and hatred toward this creature who twice had been the means of his losing possession of Meriem. The killing of Ali ben Kadin caused him little anger always had he hated the hideous son of his father's hideous slave. The blow that this naked white warrior had once struck him added fuel to his rage.
There the light of a fire illuminated the interior. She saw Ali ben Kadin, The Sheik's half brother, squatted upon a rug, smoking. The Sheik was standing. The Sheik and Ali ben Kadin had had the same father, but Ali ben Kadin's mother had been a slave a West Coast Negress. Ali ben Kadin was old and hideous and almost black. His nose and part of one cheek were eaten away by disease.
As they went they were often forced to throw themselves to the ground in the shadow of a tent or hut, for people were passing hurriedly to and fro now the whole village was aroused and moving about. The return to the tent of Ali ben Kadin took much longer than had their swift flight to the palisade. Cautiously they crept to the slit that Korak's knife had made in the rear wall.
At her reply Ali ben Kadin rushed upon her once again. This time he dragged her back into the rear apartment of his tent where three Negresses looked up in stolid indifference to the tragedy being enacted before them. As the Hon. Morison saw his way blocked by the huge frame of the giant black his disappointment and rage filled him with a bestial fury that transformed him into a savage beast.
Then the coming of the young Englishman recalled the scene he had witnessed in the little clearing, and a wave of misery swept over the ape man. Already from without came the sounds of the alarm that the three Negresses had started. Men were running toward the tent of Ali ben Kadin. There was no time to be lost.
He looked up and grinned as Meriem entered. The Sheik jerked his thumb toward Ali ben Kadin and addressed Meriem. "I am getting old," he said, "I shall not live much longer. Therefore I have given you to Ali ben Kadin, my brother." That was all. Ali ben Kadin rose and came toward her. Meriem shrank back, horrified. The man seized her wrist.
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