the courtyard leapt a gleam of
lanterns containing tiny clay lamps in which burned a wick that was
nourished by mutton fat. Asad, waiting to learn who came, halted at the
foot of the white glistening steps, whilst from doors and lattices of
the palace flooded light to suffuse the courtyard and set the marbles
shimmering.

A dozen Nubian javelin-men advanced, then ranged themselves aside whilst
into the light stepped the imposing, gorgeously robed figure of Asad's
wazeer, Tsamanni. After him came another figure in mail that clanked
faintly and glimmered as he moved.

"Peace and the Prophet's blessings upon thee, O mighty Asad!" was the
wazeer's greeting.

"And peace upon thee, Tsamanni," was the answer. "Art the bearer of
news?"

"Of great and glorious tidings, O exalted one! Sakr-el-Bahr is
returned."

"The praise to Him!" exclaimed the Basha, with uplifted hands; and there
was no mistaking the thrill of his voice.

There fell a soft step behind him and a shadow from the doorway. He
turned. A graceful stripling in turban and caftan of cloth of gold
salaamed to him from the topmast step. And as he came upright and the
light of the lanterns fell full upon his face the astonishingly white
fairness of it was revealed--a woman's face it might have been, so
softly rounded was it in its beardlessness.

Asad smiled wrily in his white beard, guessing that the boy had been
sent by his ever-watchful mother to learn who came and what the tidings
that they bore.

"Thou hast heard, Marzak?" he said. "Sakr-el-Bahr is returned."

"Victoriously, I hope," the lad lied glibly.

"Victorious beyond aught that was ever known," replied Tsamanni.
"He sailed at sunset into the harbour, his company aboard two mighty
Frankish ships, which are but the lesser part of the great spoil he
brings."

"Allah is great," was the Basha's glad welcome of this answer to those
insidious promptings of his Sicilian wife. "Why does he not come in
person with his news?"

"His duty keeps him yet awhile aboard, my lord," replied the wazeer.
"But he hath sent his kayia Othmani here to tell the tale of it."

"Thrice welcome be thou, Othmani." He beat his hands together, whereat
slaves placed cushions for him upon the ground. He sat, and beckoned
Marzak to his side. "And now thy tale!"

And Othmani standing forth related how they had voyaged to distant
England in the ship that Sakr-el-Bahr had captured, through seas that no
corsair yet had ever cros