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"Thou shalt hear the truth," said Sakr-el-Bahr. "The praise to Allah!" mocked Marzak. "But I warn you," the corsair continued, "that to you it will seem less easy to believe by much than any falsehood I could invent. Years ago in England where I was born I loved this woman and should have taken her to wife.
Asad sat there in a moody abstraction, already regretting that he should have lent an ear to Fenzileh to the extent of coming upon this voyage, and assured by now that at least there was no cause to mistrust Sakr-el-Bahr. Marsak came to revive that drooping mistrust. But the moment was ill-chosen, and at the first words he uttered on the subject, he was growled into silence by his sire.
After him came a dozen black-robed janissaries with scimitars along which the light of the torches rippled in little runnels as of blood. The Basha came to a halt before Sakr-el-Bahr, his arms majestically folded, his head thrown back, so that his long white beard jutted forward. "I am returned," he said, "to employ force where gentleness will not avail.
"Converted to the faith of piracy and plunder and robbery upon the seas is what you mean," said Sakr-el-Bahr. "Nay, now. To that I should need no converting, for all that I were afore," Captain Leigh admitted frankly. "I ask but to sail under another flag than the Jolly Roger." "You'll need to abjure strong drink," said Sakr-el-Bahr. "There be compensations," said Master Leigh.
And then Lionel spoke at last, straightening himself into a stiffly upright attitude. "He lies!" he cried. "He lies, Rosamund! Do not heed him." "I do not," she answered, turning away. A wave of colour suffused the swarthy face of Sakr-el-Bahr. A moment his eyes followed her as she moved away a step or two, then they turned their blazing light of anger upon Lionel.
The bait was cunningly presented, so cunningly that not for a moment did Asad or even the malicious Marzak suspect it to be just a bait and no more. It was his own life, become a menace to Asad, that Sakr-el-Bahr was offering him in exchange for the life and liberty of that Frankish slave-girl, but offering it as if unconscious that he did so. Asad considered, temptation gripping, him.
"If Sakr-el-Bahr does not command, who shall, in Heaven's name?" "Try me, O my father," cried Marzak. Asad smiled with grim wistfulness. "Art weary of life, O my son, that thou wouldst go to thy death and take the galeasse to destruction?" "Thou art less than just, O my father," Marzak protested.
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.
"It has been proposed to me that I shall do more than bless this expedition that I shall command it," he answered, watching Sakr-el-Bahr closely. He observed the sudden flicker of the corsair's eyes, the only outward sign of his inward dismay. "Command it?" echoed Sakr-el-Bahr. "'Twas proposed to thee?" And he laughed lightly as if to dismiss that suggestion. That laugh was a tactical error.
Under the awning on the starboard quarter slept the Basha and his son, and near them Biskaine was snoring. Later that morning, some time after the galeasse had awakened to life and such languid movement as might be looked for in a waiting crew, Sakr-el-Bahr went to visit Rosamund.
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