Seated on a gun-carriage, apart from his comrades in sorrow, Francisco Rimini gazed in stern silence upon the moonlit sea, and thought, perchance, of the little old lady with the rippling mouth, and the dark-eyed daughter of his adoption.

 

“Your fate is a sad one,” said a deep voice close to his side.

 

Francisco started, and looked round with indignant surprise at Bacri.

 

“None the less sad that a friend has proved false, Jew,” he said sternly. “It has never been my custom to call any of your race ‘dog,’ as too many of my creed have done in time past, but I am tempted to change my custom this night.”

 

“To misname me would do you no good and me no harm,” replied the Jew gravely. “My race is an accursed one as far as man is concerned, but man’s curse is of no more value than his blessing.”

 

“If these arms were free, Bacri,” retorted Francisco hotly, “I would teach thee that which would prove anything but a blessing to thy carcase, thou huge caitiff! I had thought better of thee than thou didst deserve.—Go, thy bulky presence is distasteful.”

 

“Wherein have I wronged you?” asked the Jew.

 

“Wronged me!” exclaimed Francisco, with rising wrath, “art thou not hand and glove with the chief pirate? Thinkest thou that my eyes have lost their power of vision?”

 

“Truly I am acquainted with the corsair, though the acquaintance was none of my seeking,” returned the Jew, “for, as I said before, traders have dealings with many sorts of men; but I did not advise him to attack you, and I could not hinder him.”

 

“Scoundrel!” exclaimed the padrone, “couldst thou not restrain thine hand when it knocked the senses out of my boy Mariano? Wouldst have me believe that thy huge fists are not subject to thy villainous will, or that they acted as they did by mere accident, instead of aiding to repel the pirates?”

 

“I did it to save his life,” replied Bacri, “and not only his, but your own and the lives of all your men. I saw that Mariano was about to prevail, and if he had slain the corsair chief, not one of you would have been alive at this moment.”

 

Francisco’s wrath when roused was not readily appeased, nevertheless this statement puzzled him so much that he remained silently gazing at the Jew, from sheer inability to express his feelings.

 

“Listen,” continued Bacri, drawing nearer, and speaking in a lower tone, “the man into whose hands you have fallen is Sidi Hassan, one of the most noted and daring of the pirates on the Barbary coast. Escape from him is impossible. I know him well, and can assure you that your only hope of receiving anything that deserves the title of good treatment depends on your quiet and absolute subjection to his will. Rebellious or even independent bearing will insure your speedy and severe humiliation. We ‘dogs of Jews,’” continued Bacri, with a sad smile, “may seem to you to hang our heads rather low sometimes, but I have seen Christian men, as bold as you are, crawl upon the very dust before these Turks of Algiers.”

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