Asad’s eyes glittered dully, his colour faded to a deathly ashen hue. “Thou infamous traitor....” he began in a thick voice, his body quivering with anger.
“Ah no,” Sakr-el-Bahr interrupted him. “Were I a traitor it is what I should have done already, knowing as I do that in any division of our forces, numbers will be heavily on my side. Let then my silence prove my unswerving loyalty, Asad. Let it weigh with thee in considering my conduct, nor permit thyself to be swayed by Marzak there, who recks nothing so that he vents his petty hatred of me.”
“Do not heed him, O my father!” cried Marzak. “It cannot be that....”
“Peace!” growled Asad, somewhat stricken on a sudden.
And there was peace whilst the Basha stood moodily combing his white beard, his glittering eyes sweeping from Oliver to Rosamund and back again. He was weighing what Sakr-el-Bahr had said. He more than feared that it might be no more than true, and he realized that if he were to provoke a mutiny here he would be putting all to the test, setting all upon a throw in which the dice might well be cogged against him.
If Sakr-el-Bahr prevailed, he would prevail not merely aboard this galley, but throughout Algiers, and Asad would be cast down never to rise again. On the other hand, if he bared his scimitar and called upon the faithful to support him, it might chance that recognizing in him the exalted of Allah to whom their loyalty was due, they would rally to him. He even thought it might be probable. Yet the stake he put upon the board was too vast. The game appalled him, whom nothing yet had appalled, and it scarce needed a muttered caution from Biskaine to determine him to hold his hand.
He looked at Sakr-el-Bahr again, his glance now sullen. “I will consider thy words,” he announced in a voice that was unsteady. “I would not be unjust, nor steer my course by appearances alone. Allah forbid!”
CHAPTER XVIII.
SHEIK MAT
Under the inquisitive gaping stare of all about them stood Rosamund and Sakr-el-Bahr regarding each other in silence for a little spell after the Basha’s departure. The very galley-slaves, stirred from their habitual lethargy by happenings so curious and unusual, craned their sinewy necks to peer at them with a flicker of interest in their dull, weary eyes.
Sakr-el-Bahr’s feelings as he considered Rosamunds’s white face in the fading light were most oddly conflicting. Dismay at what had befallen and some anxious dread of what must follow were leavened by a certain measure of relief.