Part 16 (2/2)
Sakr-el-Bahr had not yet pronounced his intentions concerning the piratical little skipper, and Master Leigh, full conscious that he was a villain, feared the worst, and had spent so a dooed, Master Leigh, since last we talked in a shi+p's cabin,” was the renegade's inscrutable greeting
”Indeed,” Master Leigh agreed ”But I hope ye'll remember that on that occasion I was your friend”
”At a price,” Sakr-el-Bahr reminded him ”And at a price you may find me your friend to-day”
The rascally skipper's heart leapt with hope
”Naerly ”And so that it ties within le at it I've had enough of slavery,” he ran on in a plaintive whine ”Five years of it, and four of thealleys of Spain, and no day in all of them but that I prayed for death Did you but knohat I ha' suffered”
”Never was suffering , never justice more poetic,” said Sakr-el-Bahr in a voice that made the skipper's blood run cold ”You would have sold me, a man who did you no hurt, indeed a man who once befriended you--you would have sold me into slavery for a matter of two hundred pounds”
”Nay, nay,” cried the other fearfully, ”as God's my witness, 'twas never part of ot the words I spoke to you, the offer that I ain”
”Ay, at a price, 'tis true,” Sakr-el-Bahr repeated ”And it is fortunate for you that you are to-day in a position to pay a price that should postpone your dirty neck's acquaintance with a rope I need a navigator,” he added in explanation, ”and what five years ago you would have done for two hundred pounds, you shall do to-day for your life How say you: will you navigate this shi+p for h, who could scarce believe that this was all that was required of hi”
”I ae,” answered Sakr-el-Bahr ”You shall sail o, back to the reed?”
”Ay, and gladly,” replied Master Leigh without a second's pause
”The conditions are that you shall have your life and your liberty,”
Sakr-el-Bahr explained ”But do not suppose that arrived in England you are to be perh once you have done that I shall find a way to send you home if you so desire it, and perhaps there will be sohout Follow the habits of a lifeti me false and there's an end to you You shall have for constant bodyguard these two lilies of the desert,” and he pointed to the colossal Nubians who stood there invisible almost in the shadow but for the flash of teeth and eyeballs ”They shall watch over you, and see that no har as you are honest with n of treachery You o You have the freedom of the shi+p, but you are not to leave it here or elsewhere save athimself fortunate beyond his expectations or deserts, and the Nubians followed hi behind him ever after like some vast twin shadow
To Sakr-el-Bahr entered now Biskaine with a report of the prize captured Beyond the prisoners, however, and the actual vessel, which had suffered nothing in the fight, the cargo was of no account Outward bound as she was it was not to be expected that any treasures would be discovered in her hold They found great store of arht else that orthy of the corsairs'
attention
Sakr-el-Bahr briefly issued his surprising orders
”Thou'lt set the captives aboard one of the galleys, Biskaine, and thyself convey theiers, there to be sold All else thou'lt leave aboard here, and two hundred picked corsairs to go a voyage with hters”
”Art thou, then, not returning to Algiers, O Sakr-el-Bahr?”
”Not yet I ae Convey uard and cherish, and tell him to look for me in some six weeks time”
This sudden resolve of Oliver-Reis created no little exciteation upon the open seas, none of them had ever been beyond the Mediterranean, few of theed as far west as Cape Spartel, and it is doubtful if they would have followed any other leader into the perils of the open Atlantic But Sakr-el-Bahr, the child of Fortune, the protected of Allah, had never yet led theht but victory, and he had but to call them to heel and they would troop after hio So now there was little trouble in finding the two hundred Musli crew Rather was the difficulty to keep the nuer for the adventure within the bounds he had indicated
You are not to suppose that in all this Sir Oliver was acting upon any preconcerted plan Whilst he had lain on the heights watching that fine shi+p beating up against the wind it had come to him that with such a vessel under hiland, to descend upon that Cornish coast abruptly as a thunderbolt, and present the reckoning to his craven dastard of a brother He had toyed with the fancy, dreamily almost as men build their castles in Spain Then in the heat of conflict it had entirely escaped his mind, to return in the shape of a resolve when he cah
The skipper and the shi+p conjointly provided him with all the means to realize that dream he had dreae his cruel fancy Perhaps, too, he ht compel her to hear the truth frorew He had never been able to determine whether Sir John had been his friend or his foe in the past; but since it was Sir John who had been instru the courts to presuade he must be accounted dead at law--and since it was Sir John as contriving this wedding between Lionel and Rosamund, why, Sir John, too, should be paid a visit and should be infor he did
With the forces at his disposal in those days of his absolute lordshi+p of life and death along the African littoral, to conceive ith Oliver-Reis no more than the prelude to execution The habit of swift realization of his every wish had groith hiuided now his course