the first time.

"Do you speak our tongue?" he asked.

"Yes, Emir, as well as my own."

"Then you understand what we have said. Had I not been bound by my
oath, I would have embraced you as a brother. We Arabs can appreciate a
brave deed, even when it is done by an enemy. When one of the boatmen
ran into the battery where I was directing the guns against your boat,
and said that the boat in which my wife, with other women, were
crossing had been sunk, by a shell from our batteries on the other
side, I felt that my blood was turned to water. He said he believed
that all had been killed or drowned, but that he looked back as he
swam, and saw a white man jump overboard, and a short time after
another followed him; and that, when he reached the shore, they were
supporting a woman in the water.

"I rode hither, having but small hope indeed that it was my wife, but
marvelling much that a white officer should thus risk his life to save
a drowning woman. My oath pressed heavily upon me, as I rode. Even had
it been but a slave girl whom you rescued, I should no less have
admired your courage. I myself am said to be brave, but it would never
have entered my mind thus to risk my life for a stranger. When I found
that it was my wife who was saved, I still more bitterly regretted the
oath that stood between me and her preserver, and truly glad am I that
she has herself shown me how I can escape from its consequences.

"Now I see you, I wonder even more than before at what you have done;
for indeed, in years, you are little more than a boy."

"What I did, Emir, I believe any white officer who was a good swimmer
would have done. No Englishman would see a woman drowning without
making an effort to save her, if he had it in his power. As to the fact
that she was not of the same race or religion, he would never give it a
thought. It would be quite enough for him that she was a woman."

"And you," Mahmud said, turning to Zaki, "you are a Jaalin, are you
not?"

"I am."

"Jaalin or Baggara, you are my friend," Mahmud said, placing his hand
on Zaki's shoulders. "And so you, too, leapt overboard to save a
woman?"

"No, Emir," he replied, "I jumped over because my master jumped over. I
had not thought about the woman. I jumped over to aid him, and it was
to give him my help that I took my share in supporting the woman. The
Bimbashi is a good master, and I would die for him."

Mahmud smiled at this frank answer.

"Nevertheless,