“The curse of Allah upon thee!” he screamed, and Marzak recoiled before him. “Has this presumptuous hellcat who bore thee taught thee to stand before my face, to tell me what thou wilt and wilt not do? By the Koran! too long have I endured her evil foreign ways, and now it seems she has taught thee how to tread them after her and how to beard thy very father! To-morrow thou’lt take the sea with Sakr-el-Bahr, I have said it. Another word and thou’lt go aboard his galeasse even as thou saidst should be the case with him—at the rowers’ bench, to learn submission under the slave master’s whip.”
Terrified, Marzak stood numb and silent, scarcely daring to draw breath. Never in all his life had he seen his father in a rage so royal. Yet it seemed to inspire no fear in Fenzileh, that congenital shrew whose tongue not even the threat of rods or hooks could silence.
“I shall pray Allah to restore sight to thy soul, O father of Marzak,” she panted, “to teach thee to discriminate between those that love thee and the self-seekers that abuse thy trust.”
“How!” he roared at her. “Art not yet done?”
“Nor ever shall be until I am lain dumb in death for having counselled thee out of my great love, O light of these poor eyes of mine.”
“Maintain this tone,” he said, with concentrated anger, “and that will soon befall.”
“I care not so that the sleek mask be plucked from the face of that dog-descended Sakr-el-Bahr. May Allah break his bones! What of those slaves of his—those two from England, O Asad? I am told that one is a woman, tall and of that white beauty which is the gift of Eblis to these Northerners. What is his purpose with her—that he would not show her in the suk as the law prescribes, but comes slinking here to beg thee set aside the law for him? Ha! I talk in vain. I have shown thee graver things to prove his vile disloyalty, and yet thou’lt fawn upon him whilst thy fangs are bared to thine own son.”
He advanced upon her, stooped, caught her by the wrist, and heaved her up.
His face showed grey under its deep tan. His aspect terrified her at last and made an end of her reckless forward courage.
He raised his voice to call.