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Updated: June 21, 2025
Nor ever again let thyself be seen roving the public places afoot." She obeyed him instantly, without a murmur; and he himself lingered at the gates with Tsamanni until her litter had passed out, escorted by Ayoub and Marzak walking each on one side of it and neither daring to meet the angry eye of the Basha. Asad looked sourly after that litter, a sneer on his heavy lips.
Yet justice compelled him still to defend Sakr-el-Bahr, or else perhaps he but reasoned to prove to himself that the case against the corsair was indeed complete. "He may have sinned in thoughtlessness," he suggested. At that she cried out in admiration of him. "What a fount of mercy and forbearance art thou, O father of Marzak! Thou'rt right as in all things.
Marzak showed his teeth and growled inarticulately, whilst the Basha, taken aback by the ease reflected in the captain's careless, mocking words, could but quote a line of the Koran with which Fenzileh of late had often nauseated him. "A man's son is the partner of his soul. I have no secrets from Marzak. Speak, then, before him, or else be silent and depart."
"Thou dost but voice thine own malice," Asad rebuked him. "And I am proven a fool in that I have permitted the malice of others to urge me in this matter. No more, I say." Thereupon Marzak fell silent and sulking, his eyes ever following Sakr-el-Bahr, who had descended the three steps from the poop to the gangway and was pacing slowly down between the rowers' benches.
Whilst still he hesitated, Marzak, who had also risen, caught him by the arm and poured into his ear hot, urgent arguments enjoining him to yield to Sakr-el-Bahr's demand. "It is the sure way," he cried insistently. "Shall all be jeopardized for the sake of that whey-faced daughter of perdition?
Asad broke bread with a reverently pronounced "Bismillah!" and dipped his fingers into the earthenware bowl, leading the way for Sakr-el-Bahr and Marzak, and as they ate he invited the corsair himself to recite the tale of his adventure. When he had done so, and again Asad had praised him in high and loving terms, Marzak set him a question.
But at least," he added, prompted by a wicked notion suddenly conceived, "at least you cannot taunt me with lack of address with weapons." "Give him room," said Sakr-el-Bahr, with ironical good-humour, "and he will show us prodigies." Marzak looked at him with narrowing, gleaming eyes. "Give me a cross-bow," he retorted, "and I'll show thee how to shoot," was his amazing boast.
"Is it not plain, O my father, that this marriage of his was no more than a pretence?" cried Marzak. "As plain as the light of day," replied Asad. "Thy marriage with that woman made an impious mock of the True Faith. It was no marriage. It was a blasphemous pretence, thine only aim to thwart me, abusing my regard for the Prophet's Holy Law, and to set her beyond my reach."
Her lovely arms were raised to support her head, and she stared up at the lamp of many colours that hung from the fretted ceiling. Marzak paced the length of the chamber back and forth, and there was silence save for the soft swish of his slippers along the floor. "Well?" she asked him impatiently at last. "Does it not seem odd to thee?"
"I mean Lionel, of course," he said, in answer to her questioning glance. "That scene between us the blow and the swoon and the rest of it was all make-believe. So afterwards the shooting. My challenge to Marzak was a ruse to gain time to avoid shooting until Lionel's head should have become so dimly visible in the dusk that none could say whether it was still there or not.
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