ised him a handsome share of the plunder should the
treasure-galley be captured. That done he sent for Sakr-el-Bahr, whilst
Marzak, who had been present at the interview, went with the tale of it
to his mother, and beheld her fling into a passion when he added that it
was Sakr-el-Bahr had been summoned that he might be entrusted with
this fresh expedition, thus proving that all her crafty innuendoes and
insistent warnings had been so much wasted labour.

With Marzak following at her heels, she swept like a fury into the
darkened room where Asad took his ease.

"What is this I hear, O my lord?" she cried, in tone and manner more the
European shrew than the submissive Eastern slave. "Is Sakr-el-Bahr to go
upon this expedition against the treasure-galley of Spain?"

Reclining on his divan he looked her up and down with a languid eye.
"Dost know of any better fitted to succeed?" quoth he.

"I know of one whom it is my lord's duty to prefer to that foreign
adventurer. One who is entirely faithful and entirely to be trusted.
One who does not attempt to retain for himself a portion of the booty
garnered in the name of Islam."

"Bah!" said Asad. "Wilt thou talk forever of those two slaves? And who
may be this paragon of thine?"

"Marzak," she answered fiercely, flinging out an arm to drag forward
her son. "Is he to waste his youth here in softness and idleness? But
yesternight that ribald mocked him with his lack of scars. Shall he take
scars in the orchard of the Kasbah here? Is he to be content with those
that come from the scratch of a bramble, or is he to learn to be a
fighter and leader of the Children of the Faith that himself he may
follow in the path his father trod?"

"Whether he so follows," said Asad, "is as the Sultan of Istambul, the
Sublime Portal, shall decree. We are but his vicegerents here."

"But shall the Grand Sultan appoint him to succeed thee if thou hast
not equipped him so to do? I cry shame on thee, O father of Marzakl, for
that thou art lacking in due pride in thine own son."

"May Allah give me patience with thee! Have I not said that he is still
over young."

"At his age thyself thou wert upon the seas, serving with the great
Ochiali."

"At his age I was, by the favour of Allah, taller and stronger than is
he. I cherish him too dearly to let him go forth and perchance be lost
to me before his strength is full grown."

"Look at him," she commanded. "He is a man, Asad, and such a son as