She saw him turn with a gesture of angry command upon Larocque, who
stood there by the bulwarks, waiting.

"Back to thy post up yonder, and keep watch upon that vessel's
movements, reporting them to us. We stir not hence until such be our
lord Asad's good pleasure. Away with thee!"

Larocque without a murmur threw a leg over the bulwarks and dropped to
the oars, whence he clambered ashore as he had been bidden. And not a
single voice was raised in protest.

Sakr-el-Bahr's dark glance swept the ranks of the corsairs crowding the
forecastle.

"Because this pet of the hareem," he said, immensely daring, indicating
Marzak by a contemptuous gesture, "bleats of danger into the ears of
men, are ye all to grow timid and foolish as a herd of sheep? By Allah!
What are ye? Are ye the fearless sea-hawks that have flown with me, and
struck where the talons of my grappling-hooks were flung, or are ye but
scavenging crows?"

He was answered by an old rover whom fear had rendered greatly daring.

"We are trapped here as Dragut was trapped at Jerba."

"Thou liest," he answered. "Dragut was not trapped, for Dragut found a
way out. And against Dragut there was the whole navy of Genoa, whilst
against us there is but one single galleon. By the Koran, if she shows
fight, have we no teeth? Will it be the first galleon whose decks we
have overrun? But if ye prefer a coward's counsel, ye sons of shame,
consider that once we take the open sea our discovery will be assured,
and Larocque hath told you that she carries twenty guns. I tell you that
if we are to be attacked by her, best be attacked at close quarters, and
I tell you that if we lie close and snug in here it is long odds that we
shall never be attacked at all. That she has no inkling of our presence
is proven, since she has cast anchor round the headland. And consider
that if we fly from a danger that doth not exist, and in our flight
are so fortunate as not to render real that danger and to court it, we
abandon a rich argosy that shall bring profit to us all."

"But I waste my breath in argument," he ended abruptly. "You have heard
the commands of your lord, Asad-ed-Din, and that should be argument
enough. No more of this, then."

Without so much as waiting to see them disperse from the rail and return
to their lounging attitudes about the forecastle, he turned to Asad.

"It might have been well to hang the dog who spoke of Dragut and Jerba,"
he said. "But it was never in