illar of manhood upon which you would have leaned, by this stalwart
husband of your choice. Look at him! Look at this dear brother of mine."

Under the lash of that mocking tongue Lionel's mood was stung to anger
where before it had held naught but fear.

"You are no brother of mine," he retorted fiercely. "Your mother was a
wanton who betrayed my father."

Sakr-el-Bahr quivered a moment as if he had been struck. Yet he
controlled himself.

"Let me hear my mother's name but once again on thy foul tongue, and
I'll have it ripped out by the roots. Her memory, I thank God, is far
above the insults of such a crawling thing as you. None the less, take
care not to speak of the only woman whose name I reverence."

And then turning at bay, as even the rat will do, Lionel sprang
upon him, with clawing hands outstretched to reach his throat. But
Sakr-el-Bahr caught him in a grip that bent him howling to his knees.

"You find me strong, eh?" he gibed. "Is it matter for wonder? Consider
that for six endless months I toiled at the oar of a galley, and you'll
understand what it was that turned my body into iron and robbed me of a
soul."

He flung him off, and sent him crashing into the rosebush and the
lattice over which it rambled.

"Do you realize the horror of the rower's bench? to sit day in day out,
night in night out, chained naked to the oar, amid the reek and stench
of your fellows in misfortune, unkempt, unwashed save by the rain,
broiled and roasted by the sun, festering with sores, lashed and cut
and scarred by the boatswain's whip as you faint under the ceaseless,
endless, cruel toil?"

"Do you realize it?" From a tone of suppressed fury his voice rose
suddenly to a roar. "You shall. For that horror which was mine by your
contriving shall now be yours until you die."

He paused; but Lionel made no attempt to avail himself of this. His
courage all gone out of him again, as suddenly as it had flickered up,
he cowered where he had been flung.

"Before you go there is something else," Sakr-el-Bahr resumed,
"something for which I have had you brought hither to-night.

"Not content with having delivered me to all this, not content with
having branded me a murderer, destroyed my good name, filched my
possessions and driven me into the very path of hell, you must further
set about usurping my place in the false heart of this woman I once
loved."

"I hope," he went on reflectively, "that in your own poor way you lo