k of Algiers and
become a feudatory prince of the Grand Turk. But for one who was born a
Christian gentleman that would have been an unworthy way to have ended
his days. The present was the better course.

A faint rustle in the impenetrable blackness of his prison turned
the current of his thoughts. A rat, he thought, and drew himself to a
sitting attitude, and beat his slippered heels upon the ground to drive
away the loathly creature. Instead, a voice challenged him out of the
gloom.

"Who's there?"

It startled him for a moment, in his complete assurance that he had been
alone.

"Who's there?" the voice repeated, querulously to add: "What black hell
be this? Where am I?"

And now he recognized the voice for Jasper Leigh's, and marvelled how
that latest of his recruits to the ranks of Mohammed should be sharing
this prison with him.

"Faith," said he, "you're in the forecastle of the Silver Heron; though
how you come here is more than I can answer."

"Who are ye?" the voice asked.

"I have been known in Barbary as Sakr-el-Bahr."

"Sir Oliver!"

"I suppose that is what they will call me now. It is as well perhaps
that I am to be buried at sea, else it might plague these Christian
gentlemen what legend to inscribe upon my headstone. But you--how come
you hither? My bargain with Sir John was that none should be molested,
and I cannot think Sir John would be forsworn."

"As to that I know nothing, since I did not even know where I was
bestowed until ye informed me. I was knocked senseless in the fight,
after I had put my bilbo through your comely brother. That is the sum of
my knowledge."

Sir Oliver caught his breath. "What do you say? You killed Lionel?"

"I believe so," was the cool answer. "At least I sent a couple of feet
of steel through him--'twas in the press of the fight when first the
English dropped aboard the galley; Master Lionel was in the van--the
last place in which I should have looked to see him."

There fell a long silence. At length Sir Oliver spoke in a small voice.

"Not a doubt but you gave him no more than he was seeking. You are
right, Master Leigh; the van was the last place in which to look for
him, unless he came deliberately to seek steel that he might escape a
rope. Best so, no doubt. Best so! God rest him!"

"Do you believe in God?" asked the sinful skipper on an anxious note.

"No doubt they took you because of that," Sir Oliver pursued, as if
communing with himself.