"Now!" cried Biskaine--Biskaine-el-Borak was he called from the
lightning-like impetuousness in which he was wont to strike. He
quivered with impatience, like a leashed hound.
"Not yet," was the calm, restraining answer. "Every inch nearer shore
she creeps the more certain is her doom. Time enough to sound the
charge when she goes about. Give me to drink, Abiad," he said to one of
his negroes, whom in irony he had dubbed "the White."
The slave turned aside, swept away a litter of ferns and produced an
amphora of porous red clay; he removed the palm-leaves from the mouth of
it and poured water into a cup. Sakr-el-Bahr drank slowly, his eyes
never leaving the vessel, whose every ratline was clearly defined by now
in the pellucid air. They could see men moving on her decks, and the
watchman stationed in the foremast fighting-top. She was not more than
half a mile away when suddenly came the manceuvre to go about.
Sakr-el-Bahr leapt instantly to his great height and waved a long green
scarf. From one of the galleys behind the screen of rocks a trumpet
rang out in immediate answer to that signal; it was followed by the
shrill whistles of the bo'suns, and that again by the splash and creak
of oars, as the two larger galleys swept out from their ambush. The
long armoured poops were a-swarm with turbaned corsairs, their weapons
gleaming in the sunshine; a dozen at least were astride of the crosstree
of each mainmast, all armed with bows and arrows, and the ratlines on
each side of the galleys were black with men who swarmed there like
locusts ready to envelop and smother their prey.
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