In Destiny's Clutch

Chapter II: Winds of Destiny

ON came the tiny brown-sailed felucca, helplessly driven by what Dragut accounted the winds of destiny. At closer quarters they saw indications of the desperate effort that was being made aboard her to put her about. But they were lubberly fellows who had charge of her, and Dragut was content to wait. At last, when she was in danger of being blown past them, he crossed to meet her. As the long prow ran alongside of her grappling hooks were deftly flung to seize her at mast and gunwale, and but for these she must have been swept away by the oars of the galley.

From the prow Dragut himself, a tall and handsome figure in his gold-embroidered scarlet surcoat that descended to his knees, his snowwhite turban heightening the swarthiness of his hawk face with its square-cut black beard, stood to challenge the crew of the felucca.

There were aboard of her six scared knaves, something between lackeys and seamen, whom the corsair’s black eyes passed contemptuously over. He addressed himself to a couple who were seated in the stern sheets—a tall and very elegant young gentleman, obviously Italian, and a girl upon whose white, golden-headed loveliness the corsair’s bold eyes glowed pleasurably.

“Who are you?” he demanded haughtily in Italian.

The young man answered for the twain, very composedly, as though it were a matter of everyday life with him to be held in the grappling hooks of a Barbary pirate. “My name is Ottavio Brancaleone. I am from Genoa on my way to Spain.”

“To Spain?” quoth Dragut, and laughed.

“You steer an odd course for Spain, or do you look to find it in Egypt?”

“We have lost our rudder,” the gentleman explained, “and were at the mercy of the wind.”

“I hope you find it has been merciful,” said Dragut, leering at the girl, who shrank nearer to her companion, fear staring out of her blue eyes.

“And your companion, sir, who is she?”

“My—my sister.”

“Had you told me different you had been the first Christian I ever knew to speak the truth,” said Dragut amiably. “Well, well, it’s plain you’re not to be trusted to sail a boat of your own. Best come aboard and see if you and your fellows can do better at an oar.”

“I’ll not trespass on your hospitality,” said Brancaleone, with that amazing coolness of his. “You shall earn it, I promise you,” the corsair reassured him. “So come aboard. I am Dragut- Reis.”

It pleased his vanity to notice that his name was not without disconcerting effect upon that smooth young gentleman. In the end there was a short, sharp tussle. Dragut flung a half score of his corsairs into the felucca to capture her voyagers, and one of them was stabbed by Brancaleone ere they overpowered him.

The prize proved far less insignificant than at first the corsair had imagined. For in addition to the slaves he had acquired, and the girl, who was fit to grace a sultan’s harem, he found a great chest of newly minted ducats that it took six men to heave aboard the galley, and a beautifully chiseled gold coffer, full of gems of price. He found something more. On the inside of this coffer’s lid was engraved its owner’s name— Amelia Francesca Doria.

Dragut snapped down the lid with a prayer of thanks to Allah the One, and strode into the cabin where the girl was confined. “Madonna Amelia,” said he.

She looked up instantly. Obviously it was her name, and the casket was her own.

“Will you tell me what is your kinship with the admiral?” Dragut asked.

“I am his granddaughter, sir,” she answered, “and be sure that he will avenge terribly upon you any wrong that is done to me.”

Dragut smiled. “We are old friends, the admiral and I,” said he, and went out again. A mighty Nubian bearing a torch—for night had now descended—lighted him to the galley’s waist, where about her mainmast lay huddled the seven pinioned prisoners.

With the curved toe of his scarlet slipper the corsair touched Messer Brancaleone. “Tell me, dog,” Dragut commanded, “all that you know of Messer Andrea Doria.”

“That is soon told,” answered Brancaleone. “I know nothing, nor want to.”

“You lie, as was to be expected,” said Dragut. “For one thing, you know his granddaughter.”

Brancaleone blinked and recovered. “True, and several others of his family. But I conceived your question to concern his movements. I know that he is upon the seas, that he is seeking you, that he has sworn to take you alive, and that when he does—as I pray he will—he will so deal with you that you shall implore them of their Christian charity to hang you.”

“And that is all you know?” quoth Dragut, entirely unruffled. “You did not peradventure sight his fleet as you were sailing?”

“I did not.”

“Do you think that with a match between your fingers you might remember?”

“I might invent,” replied the Italian; “but I doubt it. I have told you the truth, Messer Dragut.

Torture could but gain you falsehood.”

Dragut looked searchingly into that comely young face, then turned away as if satisfied. But as he was departing Messer Brancaleone called him back. And when he spoke now the Italian’s tone and manner were entirely changed. His imperturbability, real or assumed, had all departed. Anxiety amounting almost to terror sounded in his voice.

“What fate do you reserve for Madonna Amelia?” he asked.

Dragut looked down at the man’s pale face, and smiled a little. He had no particular rancor against his prisoner. On the whole he was inclining to admiration for the fellow’s almost philosophic courage. At the same time there was no room for sentiment in the heart of the corsair.

He was quite pitiless.

“Our lord the sublime Suleyman,” said he, entirely without malice, “is as keen a judge of beauty as any man living. I account the girl to be a worthy gift even to the exalted of Allah; so I shall keep her safe against my next voyage to Constantinople.”

And then Brancaleone’s little lingering selfpossession left him utterly. From his writhing lips came a stream of vituperation, which continued even after the Nubian had struck him a blow upon the mouth and Dragut had taken his departure.