, if you do, you know that Christian blood will be shed on this
deck before we can show our teeth to those Infidels."

The captain, with all the extravagant excitability of his southern blood,
beat his forehead and his breast, bemoaned himself as a betrayed and
ruined man, and bewailed his wife and children. Rufinus, however, put an
end to his ravings. He had consulted with the abbess, and he put it
strongly to the unhappy man that he could, in any case, hope for no mercy
from the unbelievers; while, on Christian ground, he would easily find a
safe and comfortable refuge for himself and his family. The abbess would
undertake to give them all a passage on board the ship that was awaiting
her, and to set them on shore wherever he might choose.

Setnau thought of a brother living in Cyprus; still, for him it meant
sacrificing his house and garden at Doomiat, where, at this very hour,
fifty date-palms were ripening their fruit; it meant leaving the fine new
Nile-boat by which he and his family got their living; and as he
represented this to the old man, bitter tears rolled down his brown
cheeks. Rufinus explained to him that, if he should succeed in saving the
sisters, he might certainly claim some indemnification. He might even
calculate the value of his property, and not only would he have the
equivalent paid to him out of the convent treasure, now on board in heavy
coffers, but a handsome gift into the bargain.

Setnau exchanged a meaning glance with his brother, who was a single man,
and when it was also agreed that he, too, might embark on the sea-voyage
he shook hands with Rufinus on the bargain. Then, giving himself a shake,
as if he had thrown off something that cramped him, and sticking his
leather cap knowingly on one side of his shaven head, he drew himself up
to his full height and scornfully shouted back to the Arab--who had
before now treated him and other Egyptian natives with insolent
haughtiness--that if he wanted anything of him he might come and fetch
it.

The Moslem's patience was long since exhausted, and at this challenge he
signed to his followers and sprang first into the river; but the foremost
horses soon sank so deep in the ooze that further advance was evidently
impossible, and the signal to return was perforce given. In this
manoeuvre a refractory horse lost his footing, and his rider was choked
in the mud.

On this, the men in the boat could see the foe holding council with
lively gesticul