The driver called two men forward to strike off the chains of the swooning man. He shouted also for one of the slaves who were held in reserve for such a need to be brought to supply his place.
Angelica saw the pursuivant’s senseless form lifted over the bench, and dragged to the vessel’s side. She realized abruptly that he was to be thrown overboard while he still lived. She had known, all her life, that such things were but daily events in the merciless Mediterranean warfare that had been waged for five hundred years between the Christian and Moslem powers. For the moment she forgot her own peril, even the threat that she was to take the vacated place. She turned to Hassan with a cry in which horror and appeal had an equal part.
“Oh, not that! You can’t let them throw him over. He isn’
