twined and hung futile against the sky.
“Not bad, Englishman!” observed Barbarroja patronizingly. “Not bad! Come, thrust the point into this red beard of mine—thrust in the point! I recall a Frenchman who had learned the Italian blade and who fancied himself greatly, back at Ceuta.”
Shaw attacked furiously, a silent deadliness in his manner. Barbarroja parried the attack, laughing, and continued his careless speech.
“He was a clever Frenchman! He had a thrust not unlike yours, a stiff and upright godliness in his wrist. When I warned him against this red beard, he laughed, and had the audacity to thrust straight into it. And what then? Why—”
A curse fell from Shaw’s lips. Not even a doctor of divinity but is human; and for one flickering instant the point of Barbarroja had licked at his throat. He parried, lunged again, pressed the attack with a colder skill, a more supple wrist. Barbarroja escaped only by a backward leap, disengaging. Shaw was upon him instantly. Again the thin blades met and twined, and hung suspended with life wavering in the balance.
“We were speaking of that Frenchman,” pursued Barbarroja, again twirling his red mustache. “He thought I jested, even as you think, little señor! And the point in my red beard—Dios! Have a care with that riposte—the point was tangled in my beard, señor, and my own point pricked him very neatly in the throat—thus—”
Barbarroja laughed very heartily; and midway of the laugh lunged like a demon.
In and out flickered his blade, a very tongue of death, and his eyes glared in sudden hot ferocity for blood. Shaw evaded that licking tongue by a hair; it reached around him, baffled him, bore him desperately backward.
He fought only by inspiration; his eyes upon the blazing stare of Barbarroja, his blade fending off the slithering death by sheer intuition. This could not last long, and Shaw knew it.
He was driven back and back, while ever those blood-hot eyes glared upon him, and the Toledo slid ever with more deadly lust. Now he was growing weary.
Abruptly Shaw gathered himself together, so abruptly that in the very midst of his retreat he plunged forward. The two blades went upward, locked at the hilts; then Shaw thrust back and forward again, leaped away, stood on guard. It was all in a flash.
Barbarroja moved not. He stared at Shaw with an expression of dismayed consternation. Then, unexpectedly, the Toledo dropped from his hand. Across his breast surged a sudden wide flare of crimson. His knees crumpled; he plunged forward on his face and lay quiet.
“Whether he died from the point,” murmured Shaw, panting, “or from sheer amazement that I pinked him—’tis all one. The result, logically enough.”
From the three ruffians came a wild, hoarse yell—a shout of mingled rage, despair, and fright. They broke and ran for the horses. With a rush, a scramble, a flood of hot oaths, they mounted and took to flight. Dr. Shaw gazed after them, wide-eyed. Then he felt the hand of Mistress Betty seize his arm—heard her voice crying out at him:
“Look! Look—it is he—Spence!”
Shaw whirled about. There, upon the road, he beheld a cloud of dust, and far ahead of the dust three riders already drawing close—the foremost of them Spence.
An instant later Spence was reining up beside them, while his men whirled on in pursuit of the three escaping rogues.
“Good!” cried Spence, exultantly shaking hands. “The old governor scented something amiss in your departure—he said I might catch up with you, so I came along. Shaw, what’s been going on here? Why did you leave town, Mistress Betty?”
There was a moment of hurried explanations as all spoke at once. Then the girl seized upon the story, and Spence heard of what had taken place. Soberly he nodded at mention of Mulai Ali’s death.
“Aye, we heard of his death—Ripperda was carried off his feet with delight. He is a gracious scoundrel, that Ripperda! Hello, Shaw, what are you up to?”
They turned. Dr. Shaw was muttering over the Toledo, which he had picked up. Now he lifted his face to them, his eyes gleaming with delight.
“Look!” he cried. “The rascal told the truth! This graving says that the blade was made at Toledo, in the year 368 of the Moslem calendar, by special order of the great Almansur of Cordova! To think of such a sweet tool—a historic relic—eight hundred years of age.”
“Thrust it into your scabbard and let us be gone—with congratulations on your victory, doctor! A noble fight. But Ripperda is awaiting you, and so keep your wits about you.”
Shaw stared with fallen jaw. Ripperda!
“Then look to yourself, Patrick!” he cried suddenly. “This Barbarroja told me that it is known you carry the casket behind your saddle! Gholam Mahmoud knows it.”
Spence broke into another hearty laugh.
“Nay, let him search!” he cried gaily. “When I met with Ripperda, yesterday, I threw the box into the river. The box is gone, Mulai Ali is dead—there is an end to all intrigue! Here come three horsemen who rode with me.”
The horsemen, among whom were some of Ripperda’s bodyguard, were returning. At the saddle of the three foremost were three bloody heads. Steel, says the proverb, is swifter than judgment.
Thus the three, reunited, rode back into Udjde. If Patrick Spence thought that he was done with intrigue, however, he was far wrong, for Mulai Ali, though wounded and hidden away by the old governor, was not dead at all.
CHAPTER X
“He will spend his mouth and promise, like Brabbler the hound; but when he performs, astronomers foretell it!”
Pasha Ripperda sat in the justice hall of the kasbah and enjoyed his triumph. With the death of Mulai Ali, the one external danger that menaced him was gone. This thin man with the haunted eye was the supreme ruler of western Africa; the combined Barbary armies and fleets obeyed his orders—Egypt was in alliance with him.
Inwardly, gout rioted in his blood. As he sat and gave orders and heard reports, agony twisted him. Around him were his famous renegades, bitter, cruel men, devoted to him. And they could not save him from the devils that dwelt in his blood.
Messengers were dispatched to the sherif with news of Mulai Ali’s death—though the body had not been found—and Ripperda ordered a litter made ready that night, for he was returning swiftly to the army.
Dr. Shaw, Patrick Spence, and Mistress Betty entered the hall.
Though the effort made his face livid, Ripperda arose and tendered the girl the pitiful ghost of that bow whose courtly grace had once been famous from Vienna to Madrid. Then he staggered and fell back among the cushions.
In the eyes of the girl lay pity. Dr. Shaw, after one cold bow, stood gazing at the man with no evidence of feeling. The shrewd doctor was sensible that he faced an enemy.
Ripperda began to speak in English, and suddenly the inner man shone forth. That tongue of Ripperda’s had done incredible feats, and had not lost its cunning. He ignored Shaw for the moment and addressed the girl, whose story he had learned from Spence on the road.
“You have naught to fear under my protection, mistress,”
