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Vigitello sprang to obey him, whilst Asad shook his head and laughed again. "An it were not against the Prophet's law to make a wager...." he was beginning, when Marzak interrupted him. "Already should I have proposed one." "So that," said Sakr-el-Bahr, "thy purse would come to match thine head for emptiness." Marzak looked at him and sneered.
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.
Larocque was superintending the loading of the vessel, bawling his orders for the bestowal of provisions here, of water yonder, and of powder about the mainmast. Vigitello was making a final inspection of the slaves at the oars. As the palmetto pannier was brought aboard, Larocque shouted to the negroes to set it down by the mainmast.
A blast of Vigitello's whistle brought his own men to heel, and they passed rapidly along the benches ordering the rowers to make ready, whilst Jasper and a half-dozen Muslim sailors set about furling the sails that already were beginning to flap in the shifting and intermittent gusts of the expiring wind. Sakr-el-Bahr gave the word to row, and Vigitello blew a second and longer blast.
On the instant he had resolved upon his course. "Stay!" he said, raising his hand to Vigitello, who, indeed had shown no sign of stirring. He stepped close up to Asad, and what he said did not go beyond those who stood immediately about the Basha and Rosamund, who strained her ears that she might lose no word of it. "Do not think, Asad," he said, "that I will submit me like a camel to its burden.
Did it come to a choice between us, their faith would urge them to stand beside him in spite of any past bonds that may have existed between them and me." "Yet there were some who murmured when thou wert superseded in the command of this expedition," Vigitello informed him. "I doubt not that many would be influenced by their faith, but many would stand by thee against the Grand Sultan himself.
Upon that he quitted Vigitello, and slowly, thoughtfully, returned to the poop-deck. It was his hope his only hope now that Asad might accept the proposal he had made him. As the price of it he was fully prepared for the sacrifice of his own life, which it must entail. But, it was not for him to approach Asad again; to do so would be to argue doubt and anxiety and so to court refusal.
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