the ship and
attacking a village which might have risen to cut off our good retreat."

The frown remained stamped upon the brow of Asad, as Marzak slyly
observed.

"Yet Othmani," said he, "urged thee to fall upon a slumbering village
all unconscious of thy presence, and thou didst refuse."

Asad looked up sharply at that, and Sakr-el-Bahr realized with a
tightening about the heart something of the undercurrents at work
against him and all the pains that had been taken to glean information
that might be used to his undoing.

"Is it so?" demanded Asad, looking from his son to his lieutenant with
that lowering look that rendered his face evil and cruel.

Sakr-el-Bahr took a high tone. He met Asad's glance with an eye of
challenge.

"And if it were so my lord?" he demanded.

"I asked thee is it so?"

"Ay, but knowing thy wisdom I disbelieved my ears," said Sakr-el-Bahr.
"Shall it signify what Othmani may have said? Do I take my orders or am
I to be guided by Othmani? If so, best set Othmani in my place, give
him the command and the responsibility for the lives of the Faithful who
fight beside him." He ended with an indignant snort.

"Thou art over-quick to anger," Asad reproved him, scowling still

"And by the Head of Allah, who will deny my right to it? Am I to conduct
such an enterprise as this from which I am returned laden with spoils
that might well be the fruits of a year's raiding, to be questioned by a
beardless stripling as to why I was not guided by Othmani?"

He heaved himself up and stood towering there in the intensity of a
passion that was entirely simulated. He must bluster here, and crush
down suspicion with whorling periods and broad, fierce gesture.

"To what should Othmani have guided me?" he demanded scornfully. "Could
he have guided me to more than I have this day laid at thy feet? What I
have done speaks eloquently with its own voice. What he would have had
me do might well have ended in disaster. Had it so ended, would the
blame of it have fallen upon Othmani? Nay, by Allah! but upon me. And
upon me rests then the credit, and let none dare question it without
better cause."

Now these were daring words to address to the tyrant Asad, and still
more daring was the tone, the light hard eyes aflash and the sweeping
gestures of contempt with which they were delivered. But of his
ascendancy over the Basha there was no doubt. And here now was proof of
it.

Asad almost cowered before his fur