er, and
thrusting aside those who stood about her, took his stand at her side.

CHAPTER XVII. THE DUPE

For a little while Asad stood at gaze, speechless in his incredulity.
Then to revive the anger that for a moment had been whelmed in
astonishment came the reflection that he had been duped by Sakr-el-Bahr,
duped by the man he trusted most. He had snarled at Fenzileh and scorned
Marzak when they had jointly warned him against his lieutenant; if at
times he had been in danger of heeding them, yet sooner or later he
had concluded that they but spoke to vent their malice. And yet it was
proven now that they had been right in their estimate of this traitor,
whilst he himself had been a poor, blind dupe, needing Marzak's wit to
tear the bandage from his eyes.

Slowly he went down the gangway, followed by Marzak, Biskaine, and the
others. At the point where it joined the waist-deck he paused, and his
dark old eyes smouldered under his beetling brows.

"So," he snarled. "These are thy goods of price. Thou lying dog, what
was thine aim in this?"

Defiantly Sakr-el-Bahr answered him: "She is my wife. It is my right to
take her with me where I go." He turned to her, and bade her veil her
face, and she immediately obeyed him with fingers that shook a little in
her agitation.

"None questions thy right to that," said Asad. "But being resolved to
take her with thee, why not take her openly? Why was she not housed in
the poop-house, as becomes the wife of Sakr-el-Bahr? Why smuggle her
aboard in a pannier, and keep her there in secret?"

"And why," added Marzak, "didst thou lie to me when I questioned thee
upon her whereabouts?--telling me she was left behind in thy house in
Algiers?"

"All this I did," replied Sakr-el-Bahr, with a lofty--almost a
disdainful--dignity, "because I feared lest I should be prevented from
bearing her away with me," and his bold glance, beating full upon Asad,
drew a wave of colour into the gaunt old cheeks.

"What could have caused that fear?" he asked. "Shall I tell thee?
Because no man sailing upon such a voyage as this would have desired the
company of his new-wedded wife. Because no man would take a wife with
him upon a raid in which there is peril of life and peril of capture."

"Allah has watched over me his servant in the past," said Sakr-el-Bahr,
"and I put my trust in Him."

It was a specious answer. Such words--laying stress upon the victories
Allah sent him--had afore-time