d with anger.

"Her face has been bared to a thousand eyes and more," he cried.

"Even that has been so before," replied Tsamanni.

And then quite suddenly at their elbow a voice that was naturally soft
and musical of accent but now rendered harsh, cut in to ask:

"What woman may this be?"

Startled, both the Basha and his wazeer swung round. Fenzileh,
becomingly veiled and hooded, stood before them, escorted by Marzak. A
little behind them were the eunuchs and the litter in which, unperceived
by Asad, she had been borne thither. Beside the litter stood her wazeer
Ayoub-el-Samin.

Asad scowled down upon her, for he had not yet recovered from the
resentment she and Marzak had provoked in him. Moreover, that in private
she should be lacking in the respect which was his due was evil enough,
though he had tolerated it. But that she should make so bold as to
thrust in and question him in this peremptory fashion before all the
world was more than his dignity could suffer. Never yet had she dared
so much nor would she have dared it now but that her sudden anxiety had
effaced all caution from her mind. She had seen the look with which
Asad had been considering that lovely slave, and not only jealousy but
positive fear awoke in her. Her hold upon Asad was growing tenuous. To
snap it utterly no more was necessary than that he who of late years had
scarce bestowed a thought or glance upon a woman should be taken with
the fancy to bring some new recruit to his hareem.

Hence her desperate, reckless courage to stand thus before him now, for
although her face was veiled there was hardy arrogance in every line of
her figure. Of his scowl she took no slightest heed.

"If this be the slave fetched by Sakr-el-Bahr from England, then rumour
has lied to me," she said. "I vow it was scarce worth so long a
voyage and the endangering so many valuable Muslim lives to fetch this
yellow-faced, long-shanked daughter of perdition into Barbary."

Asad's surprise beat down his anger. He was not subtle.

"Yellow-faced? Long-shanked?" quoth he. Then reading Fenzileh at last,
he displayed a slow, crooked smile. "Already have I observed thee
to grow hard of hearing, and now thy sight is failing too, it seems.
Assuredly thou art growing old." And he looked her over with such an eye
of displeasure that she recoiled.

He stepped close up to her. "Too long already hast thou queened it in my
hareem with thine infidel, Frankish ways," he muttered,