kened chamber--a silence disturbed only by distant trills of
silvery laughter from the lesser women of the Basha's house. The sound
jarred her taut nerves. She moved with an oath and beat her hands
together. To answer her came a negress, lithe and muscular as a wrestler
and naked to the waist; the slave ring in her ear was of massive gold.

"Bid them make an end of that screeching," she snapped to vent some of
her fierce petulance. "Tell them I will have the rods to them if they
again disturb me."

The negress went out, and silence followed, for those other lesser
ladies of the Basha's hareem were more obedient to the commands of
Fenzileh than to those of the Basha himself.

Then she drew her son to the fretted lattice commanding the courtyard,
a screen from behind which they could see and hear all that passed out
yonder. Asad was speaking, informing Sakr-el-Bahr of what he had learnt,
and what there was to do.

"How soon canst thou put to sea again?" he ended

"As soon as the service of Allah and thyself require," was the prompt
answer.

"It is well, my son." Asad laid a hand, affectionately upon the
corsair's shoulder, entirely conquered by this readiness. "Best set out
at sunrise to-morrow. Thou'lt need so long to make thee ready for the
sea."

"Then by thy leave I go forthwith to give orders to prepare," replied
Sakr-el-Bahr, for all that he was a little troubled in his mind by this
need to depart again so soon.

"What galleys shalt thou take?"

"To capture one galley of Spain? My own galeasse, no more; she will be
full equal to such an enterprise, and I shall be the better able, then,
to lurk and take cover--a thing which might well prove impossible with a
fleet."

"Ay--thou art wise in thy daring," Asad approved him. "May Allah prosper
thee upon the voyage."

"Have I thy leave to go?"

"A moment yet. There is my son Marzak. He is approaching manhood, and it
is time he entered the service of Allah and the State. It is my desire
that he sail as thy lieutenant on this voyage, and that thou be his
preceptor even as I was thine of old."

Now here was something that pleased Sakr-el-Bahr as little as it pleased
Marzak. Knowing the bitter enmity borne him by the son of Fenzileh he
had every cause to fear trouble if this project of Asad's were realized.

"As I was thine of old!" he answered with crafty wistfulness. "Wilt thou
not put to sea with us to-morrow, O Asad? There is none like thee in all
Islam,