Part 20 (2/2)
”Ay, the cause of it,” she cried iht but stare? Aape and trifle away thy days whilst that dog-descended Frank tra-stone to the power that should be thine own? And that be so, Marzak, I would thou hadst been strangled in my womb”
He recoiled before the Italian fury of her, was dully resentful even, suspecting that in such words from a wo dishonouring to his manhood
”What can I do?” he cried
”Dost ask me? Art thou not a otten son of a Christian and a Jeill trareedy as the locust, wily as the serpent, and ferocious as the panther By Allah! I would I had never borne a son Rather er of scorn and call ht forth a man who knows not how to be a man”
”Show me the way,” he cried ”Set me a task; tell , O my mother Until then spare me these insults, or I coe woman heaved herself up fro her arhteen years in the Basha's hareem had stifled the European mother in her, the passionate Sicilian woer in her maternal love
”O my child, my lovely boy,” she almost sobbed ”It is ry it is but e for thee to see another co the place beside thy father that should be thine Ah! but ill prevail, sweet son of n offal to the dung-heap whence it sprang Trust me, O Marzak! sh!+ Thy father comes Away! Leave me alone with him”
She ise in that, for she knew that alone Asad was more easily controlled by her, since the pride was absent which must compel him to turn and rend her did she speak so before others Marzak vanished behind the screen of fretted sandalwood that masked one doorway even as Asad loo, his slender brown fingers co behind hiround
”Thou hast heard, not a doubt, O Fenzileh,” said he ”Art thou answered enough?”
She sank down again upon her cushi+ons and idly considered herself in a steel mirror set in silver
”Answered?” she echoed lazily, with infinite scorn and a hint of rippling conteh the word ”Answered indeed Sakr-el-Bahr risks the lives of two hundred children of Isla taken was becoland that has no object but the capturing of two slaves--two slaves, when had his purpose been sincere, it ht have been two hundred”
”Ha! And is that all that thou hast heard?” he asked her nifies,” she replied, stillherself ”I heard as afortuitously a Frankish shi+p 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 n 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 Dutchht that he ee”
”Its real purpose?” he asked dully ”What was its real purpose?” She snorance, 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 enchantht 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 ot 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 ill I say of Sakr-el-Bahr Shall I unveil the truth to be spurned and scorned and dubbed a liar and the”O source of my life!” she cried to hi now, a thing of supplest grace, her lovely ar his knees ”When my love for thee drives er, which is ht of it”