"Art thou answered
enough?"
She sank down again upon her cushions and idly considered herself in a
steel mirror set in silver.
"Answered?" she echoed lazily, with infinite scorn and a hint of
rippling contemptuous laughter running through the word. "Answered
indeed. Sakr-el-Bahr risks the lives of two hundred children of Islam
and a ship that being taken was become the property of the State upon a
voyage to England that has no object but the capturing of two slaves--
two slaves, when had his purpose been sincere, it might have been two
hundred."
"Ha! And is that all that thou hast heard?" he asked her mocking in his
turn.
"All that signifies," she replied, still mirroring herself. "I heard as
a matter of lesser import that on his return, meeting fortuitously a
Frankish ship 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 me that it was any part of his
design 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 Dutchman
into his path, and luckier still her being so richly fraught that he may
dazzle thine eyes with the sight of gold and gems, and so blind thee to
the real purpose of his voyage."
"Its real purpose?" he asked dully.
Pages:
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204