for our dispirited soldiers, but meanly courting the
blandishments of a Christian slave. Weak and forlorn and despairing, my
few brave comrades are stretched on yonder street, fainting through
want, and worn out with fatigue. I call upon Caneri for help, and I find
that the power which was intrusted to him for our mutual defence is
basely employed, not against the common enemy, but a feeble defenceless
female! Shame, Moor! shame! But that I reverence the public voice that
named thee chief, and that I desire not to arrogate to myself a
retributive justice, I myself would wrench from thee that command which
thou shamest, and entrust it to the hands of men more worthy."

Caneri remained some time speechless and abashed. Amazement, confusion
and terror alternately occupied his distracted mind; the taunts and
rebukes which El Feri had so lavishly bestowed, roused his anger almost
to madness. His heart boiled in a frenzied ebullition to which he durst
not give utterance, for he well knew that he himself would be the first
victim of its explosion. Convulsed with rage at the imagined insult, he
seemed ready to dart upon the arrogant censor of his actions, but the
tremendous power of his fellow-chief suddenly paralyzed his arm. It was
the fierce mastiff burning to rush upon the terrible bull, yet
restrained by the conscious superiority of the noble animal.

Twice the hand of Caneri was involuntarily directed towards his dagger,
and twice some sudden recollection seemed to arrest its progress. And
then he strove to conceal the incautious movement from the eagle eye of
El Feri; but the inward workings of his soul were easily detected by the
keen penetration of that chief. He stood unmoved, and whilst a sardonic
smile curled his lip, he said in a voice of dreadful import----

"Caneri, thou darest not. I see thy dastardly intention, but thou hast
not the boldness to practise what thy heart has the baseness to
dictate:--another such a movement, and thou liest a corpse at my feet."

As he uttered these last words, his brow was darkened, and his eye
flashed with indignation. Caneri, if somewhat deficient in the manly
virtues of a warrior, was amply compensated by the crafty dexterity of a
dissembler, and he now perceived the policy of hailing as a friend the
man whom he dared not defy as an enemy: he therefore with a mighty
exertion stifled his emotion, and his whole appearance became calm and
composed. Indeed an expression of mixed