Above
them circled a flock of seagulls noisy and insolent.
Sakr-el-Bahr looked out to sea across the straits towards Tarifa and the
faint distant European coastline just visible through the limpid summer
air. But his glance was not concerned with that hazy horizon; it went
no further than a fine white-sailed ship that, close-hauled, was beating
up the straits some four miles off. A gentle breeze was blowing from
the east, and with every foot of canvas spread to catch it she stood as
close to it as was possible. Nearer she came on her larboard tack, and
not a doubt but her master would be scanning the hostile African
littoral for a sight of those desperate rovers who haunted it and who
took toll of every Christian ship that ventured over-near. Sakr-el-Bahr
smiled to think how little the presence of his galleys could be
suspected, how innocent must look the sun-bathed shore of Africa to the
Christian skipper's diligently searching spy-glass. And there from his
height, like the hawk they had dubbed him, poised in the cobalt heavens
to plumb down upon his prey, he watched the great white ship and waited
until she should come within striking distance.
A promontory to eastward made something of a lee that reached out almost
a mile from shore. From the watcher's eyrie the line of demarcation was
sharply drawn; they could see the point at which the white crests of the
wind-whipped wavelets ceased and the water became smoother.
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