o yield
to Sakr-el-Bahr's demand.

"It is the sure way," he cried insistently. "Shall all be jeopardized
for the sake of that whey-faced daughter of perdition? In the name of
Shaitan, let us be rid of her; set her ashore as he demands, as the
price of peace between us and him, and in the security of that peace let
him be strangled when we come again to our moorings in Algiers. It is
the sure way--the sure way!"

Asad turned at last to look into that handsome eager face. For a moment
he was at a loss; then he had recourse to sophistry. "Am I a coward
that I should refuse all ways but sure ones?" he demanded in a withering
tone. "Or art thou a coward who can counsel none other?"

"My anxiety is all for thee, O my father," Marzak defended himself
indignantly. "I doubt if it be safe to sleep, lest he should stir up
mutiny in the night."

"Have no fear," replied Asad. "Myself I have set the watch, and the
officers are all trustworthy. Biskaine is even now in the forecastle
taking the feeling of the men. Soon we shall know precisely where we
stand."

"In thy place I would make sure. I would set a term to this danger of
mutiny. I would accede to his demands concerning the woman, and settle
after-wards with himself."

"Abandon that Frankish pearl?" quoth Asad. Slowly he shook his head.
"Nay, nay! She is a garden that shall yield me roses. Together we shall
yet taste the sweet sherbet of Kansar, and she shall thank me for having
led her into Paradise. Abandon that rosy-limbed loveliness!" He laughed
softly on a note of exaltation, whilst in the gloom Marzak frowned,
thinking of Fenzileh.

"She is an infidel," his son sternly reminded him, "so forbidden thee by
the Prophet. Wilt thou be as blind to that as to thine own peril?" Then
his voice gathering vehemence and scorn as he proceeded: "She has gone
naked of face through the streets of Algiers; she has been gaped at by
the rabble in the sok; this loveliness of hers has been deflowered by
the greedy gaze of Jew and Moor and Turk; galley-slaves and negroes have
feasted their eyes upon her unveiled beauty; one of thy captains hath
owned her his wife." He laughed. "By Allah, I do not know thee, O my
father! Is this the woman thou wouldst take for thine own? This the
woman for whose possession thou wouldst jeopardize thy life and perhaps
the very Bashalik itself!"

Asad clenched his hands until the nails bit into his flesh. Every word
his son had uttered had been as a las