t almost
a mile from shore. From the watcher's eyrie the line of demarcation was
sharply drawn; they could see the point at which the white crests of the
wind-whipped wavelets ceased and the water became smoother. Did she but
venture as far southward on her present tack, she would be slow to go
about again, and that should be their opportunity. And all unconscious
of the lurking peril she held steadily to her course, until not half a
mile remained between her and that inauspicious lee.

Excitement stirred the mail-clad corsair; he kicked his heels in the
air, then swung round to the impassive and watchful Sakr-el-Bahr.

"She will come! She will come!" he cried in the Frankish jargon--the
lingua franca of the African littoral.

"Insh' Allah!" was the laconic answer--"If God will."

A tense silence fell between them again as the ship drew nearer so that
now with each forward heave of her they caught a glint of the
white belly under her black hull. Sakr-el-Bahr shaded his eyes,
and concentrated his vision upon the square ensign flying from, her
mainmast. He could make out not only the red and yellow quarterings, but
the devices of the castle and the lion.

"A Spanish ship, Biskaine," he growled to his companion. "It is very
well. The praise to the One!"

"Will she venture in?" wondered the other.

"Be sure she will venture," was the confident answer. "She suspects
no danger, and it is not often that our galleys are to be found so far
westward. Aye, there she comes in all her Spanish pride."

Even as he spoke she reached that line of demarcation. She crossed it,
for there was still a moderate breeze on the leeward side of it, intent
no doubt upon making the utmost of that southward run.

"Now!" cried Biskaine--Biskaine-el-Borak was he called from the
lightning-like impetuousness in which he was wont to strike. He quivered
with impatience, like a leashed hound.

"Not yet," was the calm, restraining answer. "Every inch nearer shore
she creeps the more certain is her doom. Time enough to sound the charge
when she goes about. Give me to drink, Abiad," he said to one of his
negroes, whom in irony he had dubbed "the White."

The slave turned aside, swept away a litter of ferns and produced an
amphora of porous red clay; he removed the palm-leaves from the mouth
of it and poured water into a cup. Sakr-el-Bahr drank slowly, his eyes
never leaving the vessel, whose every ratline was clearly defined by
now in the pelluci