Part 30 (2/2)
”Pay him, Ali,” said the corsair shortly, and he advanced to receive his purchase
Face to face stood he noith Rosamund, for the first tiosy when he had sought her in the cabin of the carack
One swift glance she bestowed on hi with horror at her circumstance she shrank back, her face of a deathly pallor In his treatths of brutality of which he was capable, and she was not to know that this brutality had been a deliberate piece ofher now he sht-lipped cruel smile that only served to increase her terror
”Coainst the dalal as if for protection Sakr-el-Bahr reached forward, caught her by the wrists, and almost tossed her to his Nubians, Abiad and Zal-Zer, ere attending him
”Cover her face,” he bade them ”Bear her to my house Away!”
CHAPTER XI THE TRUTH
The sun was dipping swiftly to the world's rim when Sakr-el-Bahr with his Nubians and his little retinue of corsairs caates of that white house of his on its little eminence outside the Bab-el-Oueb and beyond the walls of the city
When Rosaht in the wake of the corsair, found themselves in the spacious courtyard beyond the dark and narrow entrance, the blue of the sky contained but the paling e stillness, ca the faithful unto prayer
Slaves fetched water frole and tossed aloft a slender silvery spear of water to break into a ems and so shower down into the broad marble basin
Sakr-el-Bahr washed, as did his followers, and then he went down upon the praying-mat that had been set for him, whilst his corsairs detached their cloaks and spread theround to serve them in like stead
The Nubians turned the two slaves about, lest their glances should defile the orisons of the faithful, and left thearden whence afted on the cooling air the perfuate they liht have seen the slaves arrested by the Persian heel at which they had been toiling and chanting until the call to prayer had come to strike them into statues
Sakr-el-Bahr rose from his devotions, uttered a sharp word of co their captives before theht them out upon the terrace on the roof, that space which in Eastern houses is devoted to the women, but which no woman's foot had ever trodden since this house had been tenanted by Sakr-el-Bahr the wifeless
This terrace, which was surrounded by a parapet so up the hillside to eastward, from the harbour and of the island at the end of the mole which had been so laboriously built by the labour of Christian slaves from the stones of the ruined fortress--the Penon, which Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa had wrested fro was now upon all, transreyness To ard stretched the fragrant gardens of the house, where the doves werethe mulberries and lotus trees Beyond it a valley wound its way between the shallow hills, and froreat stork was s
An awning supported upon two gigantic spears hung out from the southern wall of the terrace which rose to twice the height of that for the parapet on its other three sides Under this was a divan and silken cushi+ons, and near it a sold Over the opposite parapet, where a lattice had been set, rioted a trailing rose-tree charged with blood-red blossoed into the all-encoreyness
Here Lionel and Rosaleahostly each to each, whilst the Nubians stood like twin statues by the door that opened froroaned, and clasped his hands before him The doublet which had been torn from him in the sok had since been restored and temporarily repaired by a strand of palled
Yet his thoughts, if his first words are to be taken as an indication of them were for Rosamund's condition rather than his own
”O God, that you should be subjected to this!” he cried ”That you should have suffered what you have suffered! The humiliation of it, the barbarous cruelty! Oh!” He covered his haggard face with his hands
She touched hiently on the ar,” she said, and her voice onderfully steady and soothing Have I not said that these Godolphins were brave folk? Even their wo of the male spirit in their breasts; and to this none can doubt that Rosamund now bore witness ”Do not pity s are at an end or very nearly” She sely, the smile of exaltation that you may see upon the martyr's face in the hour of doom
”How?” quoth he, in faint surprise
”How?” she echoed ”Is there not always a way to thrust aside life's burden when it grows too heavy--heavier than God would have us bear?”
His only ansas a groan Indeed, he had done little but groan in all the hours they had spent together since they were brought ashore from the carack; and had the season perht have considered that she had found hi those hours of stress when a man of worth would have made some effort, however desperate, to enhearten her rather than repine upon his own plight