ch she was forever urging against the corsair leader. He beheld
the woman, but he discovered about her no such signs as Fenzileh had
suggested he must find, nor indeed did he look for any. Out of curiosity
had he obeyed her prompting. But that and all else were forgotten now
in the contemplation of this noble ensample of Northern womanhood,
statuesque almost in her terrible restraint.

He put forth a hand to touch her arm, and she drew it back as if his
fingers were of fire.

He sighed. "How inscrutable are the ways of Allah, that He should suffer
so luscious a fruit to hang from the foul tree of infidelity!"

Tsamanni watching him craftily, a master-sycophant profoundly learned in
the art of playing upon his master's moods, made answer:

"Even so perchance that a Faithful of the Prophet's House may pluck it.
Verily all things are possible to the One!"

"Yet is it not set down in the Book to be Read that the daughters of the
infidel are not for True-Believers?" And again he sighed.

But Tsamanni knowing full well how the Basha would like to be answered,
trimmed his reply to that desire.

"Allah is great, and what hath befallen once may well befall again, my
lord."

Asad's kindling eyes flashed a glance at his wazeer.

"Thou meanest Fenzileh. But then, by the mercy of Allah, I was rendered
the instrument of her enlightenment."

"It may well be written that thou shalt be the same again, my lord,"
murmured the insidious Tsamanni. There was more stirring in his mind
than the mere desire to play the courtier now. 'Twixt Fenzileh and
himself there had long been a feud begotten of the jealousy which each
inspired in the other where Asad was concerned. Were Fenzileh removed
the wazeer's influence must grow and spread to his own profit. It was
a thing of which he had often dreamed, but a dream he feared that was
never like to be realized, for Asad was ageing, and the fires that had
burned so fiercely in his earlier years seemed now to have consumed in
him all thought of women. Yet here was one as by a miracle, of a beauty
so amazing and so diverse from any that ever yet had feasted the Basha's
sight, that plainly she had acted as a charm upon his senses.

"She is white as the snows upon the Atlas, luscious as the dates of
Tafilalt," he murmured fondly, his gleaming eyes considering her what
time she stood immovable before him. Suddenly he looked about him, and
wheeled upon Tsamanni, his manner swiftly becoming charge