h captives, to be informed
that Othmani had taken charge of them, and that he had continued the
treatment meted out to them by Sakr-el-Bahr himself when first they were
brought aboard.

He was satisfied, and fell into a gentle healing sleep, whilst, on the
decks above, his followers rendered thanks to Allah the Pitying the
Pitiful, the Master of the Day of Judgment, who Alone is All-Wise,
All-Knowing.

CHAPTER V. THE LION OF THE FAITH

Asad-ed-Din, the Lion of the Faith, Basha of Algiers, walked in the
evening cool in the orchard of the Kasbah upon the heights above the
city, and at his side, stepping daintily, came Fenzileh, his wife, the
first lady of his hareem, whom eighteen years ago he had carried off in
his mighty arms from that little whitewashed village above the Straits
of Messina which his followers had raided.

She had been a lissom maid of sixteen in those far-off days, the child
of humble peasant-folk, and she had gone uncomplaining to the arms of
her swarthy ravisher. To-day, at thirty-four, she was still beautiful,
more beautiful indeed than when first she had fired the passion of
Asad-Reis--as he then was, one of the captains of the famous Ali-Basha.
There were streaks of red in her heavy black tresses, her skin was of
a soft pearliness that seemed translucent, her eyes were large, of a
golden-brown, agleam with sombre fires, her lips were full and sensuous.
She was tall and of a shape that in Europe would have been accounted
perfect, which is to say that she was a thought too slender for Oriental
taste; she moved along beside her lord with a sinuous, languorous grace,
gently stirring her fan of ostrich plumes. She was unveiled; indeed it
was her immodest habit to go naked of face more often than was seemly,
which is but the least of the many undesirable infidel ways which had
survived her induction into the Faith of Islam--a necessary step before
Asad, who was devout to the point of bigotry, would consent to make her
his wife. He had found her such a wife as it is certain he could never
have procured at home; a woman who, not content to be his toy, the
plaything of his idle hour, insinuated herself into affairs, demanded
and obtained his confidences, and exerted over him much the same
influence as the wife of a European prince might exert over her consort.
In the years during which he had lain under the spell of her ripening
beauty he had accepted the situation willingly enough; later, when