n slave. For it is to
Muslim wives that the housetops in Barbary are allotted. I hope you like
it."

Lionel staring at him out of a white face, his conscience bidding him
fear the very worst, his imagination painting a thousand horrid
fates for him and turning him sick with dread, shrank back before his
half-brother, who scarce appeared to notice him just then.

But Rosamund confronted him, drawn to the full of her splendid height,
and if her face was pale, yet it was as composed and calm as his own;
if her bosom rose and fell to betray her agitations yet her glance was
contemptuous and defiant, her voice calm and steady, when she answered
him with the question--"What is your intent with me?"

"My intent?" said he, with a little twisted smile. Yet for all that he
believed he hated her and sought to hurt, to humble and to crush her,
he could not stifle his admiration of her spirit's gallantry in such an
hour as this.

From behind the hills peeped the edge of the moon--a sickle of burnished
copper.

"My intent is not for you to question," he replied. "There was a time,
Rosamund, when in all the world you had no slave more utter than was I.
Yourself in your heartlessness, and in your lack of faith, you broke the
golden fetters of that servitude. You'll find it less easy to break the
shackles I now impose upon you."

She smiled her scorn and quiet confidence. He stepped close to her. "You
are my slave, do you understand?--bought in the market-place as I might
buy me a mule, a goat, or a camel--and belonging to me body and soul.
You are my property, my thing, my chattel, to use or abuse, to cherish
or break as suits my whim, without a will that is not my will, holding
your very life at my good pleasure."

She recoiled a step before the dull hatred that throbbed in his words,
before the evil mockery of his swarthy bearded face.

"You beast!" she gasped.

"So now you understand the bondage into which you are come in exchange
for the bondage which in your own wantonness you dissolved."

"May God forgive you," she panted.

"I thank you for that prayer," said he. "May He forgive you no less."

And then from the background came an inarticulate sound, a strangled,
snarling sob from Lionel.

Sakr-el-Bahr turned slowly. He eyed the fellow a moment in silence, then
he laughed.

"Ha! My sometime brother. A pretty fellow, as God lives is it not?
Consider him Rosamund. Behold how gallantly misfortune is borne by this
p