nswered?" she echoed lazily, with infinite scorn and a hint of
rippling contemptuous laughter running through the word. "Answered
indeed. Sakr-el-Bahr risks the lives of two hundred children of Islam
and a ship that being taken was become the property of the State upon
a voyage to England that has no object but the capturing of two
slaves--two slaves, when had his purpose been sincere, it might have
been two hundred."

"Ha! And is that all that thou hast heard?" he asked her mocking in his
turn.

"All that signifies," she replied, still mirroring herself. "I heard
as a matter of lesser import that on his return, meeting fortuitously
a Frankish ship that chanced to be richly laden, he seized it in thy
name."

"Fortuitously, sayest thou?"

"What else?" She lowered the mirror, and her bold, insolent eyes met his
own quite fearlessly. "Thou'lt not tell me that it was any part of his
design when he went forth?"

He frowned; his head sank slowly in thought. Observing the advantage
gained she thrust it home. "It was a lucky wind that blew that Dutchman
into his path, and luckier still her being so richly fraught that he may
dazzle thine eyes with the sight of gold and gems, and so blind thee to
the real purpose of his voyage."

"Its real purpose?" he asked dully. "What was its real purpose?" She
smiled a smile of infinite knowledge to hide her utter ignorance, her
inability to supply even a reason that should wear an air of truth.

"Dost ask me, O perspicuous Asad? Are not thine eyes as sharp, thy wits
as keen at least as mine, that what is clear to me should be hidden
from thee? Or hath this Sakr-el-Bahr bewitched thee with enchantments of
Babyl?"

He strode to her and caught her wrist in a cruelly rough grip of his
sinewy old hand.

"His purpose, thou jade! Pour out the foulness of thy mind. Speak!"

She sat up, flushed and defiant.

"I will not speak," said she.

"Thou wilt not? Now, by the Head of Allah! dost dare to stand before
my face and defy me, thy Lord? I'll have thee whipped, Fenzileh. I
have been too tender of thee these many years--so tender that thou hast
forgot the rods that await the disobedient wife. Speak then ere thy
flesh is bruised or speak thereafter, at thy pleasure."

"I will not," she repeated. "Though I be flung to the hooks, not another
word will I say of Sakr-el-Bahr. Shall I unveil the truth to be spurned
and scorned and dubbed a liar and the mother of lies?" Then abruptly
changi