taken, and it does not surprise us (in this age
of "punic faith") that a conspiracy was set on foot between the dwellers of
the hinterland and the Spaniards of the fortress.

Uruj was informed of all that was going on through his own spies, and,
although he kept his finger on the pulse of the conspiracy, he acted as
though the tribesmen were still his very faithful friends and allies. The
corsair was more patient than his wont. In this affair he wished for ample
proof of delinquency, and also for a vengeance adequate to the occasion
when he should discover all the guilty parties; and so some weeks went by
while the plot was maturing, apparently, from the point of view of the
conspirators, to a successful conclusion. But Uruj had bided his time with
a subtlety and _finesse_ which would have done credit to Kheyr-ed-Din
himself,

It was the custom of the corsair and his chief adherents to attend the
principal mosque on Fridays; and therefore, when the conspirators were
cordially invited to attend on the following Friday, and, after the service
was over, to attend Uruj to his dwelling and there confer with him, they
went, nothing doubting, to their deaths. As the discourse of the Mullah
came to an end a crash resounded throughout the building: six stalwart
swordsmen had flung the great gates of the mosque together, and barred all
exit. Excepting the conspirators, twenty-two in number, the remainder of
the edifice was filled with the galley's crews of the corsair, men who, had
he given the order, would have cheerfully set alight to the sacred building
itself and roasted the Mullahs themselves in the flames.

To the corsairs, after they were seated in the mosque, the word had been
passed that the Berber tribesmen had meditated this treachery against them,
which, had it succeeded, would have meant the death or enslavement of them
all. It was therefore a trap of a singularly deadly description into which
the countrymen of Selim Eutemi walked on this Friday morning.

The doors being closed, the conspirators were one by one dragged before
Uruj, who, bitterly reproaching them, gave order for their instant death.
They were haled out through rows of jeering pirates, and beheaded in the
street immediately in front of the principal entrance of the mosque. When
the slaughter of the twenty--two was accomplished Uruj strode from the
mosque over the weltering corpses of the traitors amid the plaudits of his
own men, ever ready to acclai