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"There is thy son, O father of Marzak." "There is, O mother of Marzak." "And a man's son should be the partner of his soul. Yet is Marzak passed over for this foreign upstart; yet does this Nasrani of yesterday hold the place in thy heart and at thy side that should be Marzak's." "Could Marzak fill that place," he asked.
"The unbeliever is for ever peeping forth from thee," was Marzak's dignified reply. "Games of chance are forbidden by the Prophet." "Make haste, man!" cried Asad. "Already I can scarce discern him. Loose thy quarrel." "Pooh," was the disdainful answer. "A fair mark still for such an eye as mine. I never miss not even in the dark." "Vain boaster," said Marzak. "Am I so?"
"Indeed, indeed," said Asad, laying a hand upon Marzak's shoulder, "his counsel is sound enough. Wait, boy, until thou hast gone beside him aboard the infidel, ere thou judge him easily perturbed." Petulantly Marzak shook off that gnarled old hand. "Dost thou, O my father, join with him in taunting me upon my lack of knowledge. My youth is a sufficient answer.
And Sakr-el-Bahr would have staked all his possessions that neither Ali nor Vigitello would have betrayed him, whilst he was fairly confident that in his own interests Jasper also must have kept faith. Yet Marzak's allusion to that palmetto bale had filled him with an uneasiness that sent him now in quest of his Italian boatswain whom he trusted above all others.
Sakr-el-Bahr watched the Basha's averted, gleaming eyes under their furrowed, thoughtful brows, he saw Marzak's face white, tense and eager in his anxiety that his father should consent. And since his father continued silent, Marzak, unable longer to contain himself, broke into speech. "He is wise, O my father!" was his crafty appeal. "The glory of Islam above all else!
A sullen threatening note had crept into the babble of the crew, and suddenly one or two voices were raised to demand insistently that Asad should put to sea at once and remove his vessel from a neighbourhood become so dangerous. Now, the fault of this was Marzak's.
And yet it was proven now that they had been right in their estimate of this traitor, whilst he himself had been a poor, blind dupe, needing Marzak's wit to tear the bandage from his eyes. Slowly he went down the gangway, followed by Marzak, Biskaine, and the others. At the point where it joined the waist-deck he paused, and his dark old eyes smouldered under his beetling brows. "So," he snarled.
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