This polite speech, delivered in his best Tartar, though with sundry Turkish terminations and accents, somewhat mollified Baraka, and she pushed her little [{262}] head backwards and upwards against the top of the deck chair, as if she were drawing herself up with pride. Also, not being used to European skirts, she stuck out one tiny foot a little further across the other, as she stretched herself, and she indiscreetly showed a pale-yellow silk ankle, round which she could have easily made her thumb meet her second finger. Logotheti glanced at it.
'You will never understand,' she said, but her tone had relented, and she made a concession. 'If you will take me to him, and if he will not be my husband, I will let Spiro kill him.'
'That might be better,' Logotheti answered with extreme gravity, for he was quite sure that Spiro would never kill anybody. 'If you will take an oath which I shall dictate, and swear to let Spiro do it, I will take you to the man you seek.'
'What must be, must be,' Baraka said in a tone of resignation. 'When he is dead, Spiro can also kill me and take the rubies and the money.'
'That would be a pity,' observed the Greek, thoughtfully.
'Why a pity? It will be my portion. I will not kill myself because then I should go to hell-fire, but Spiro can do it very well. Why should I still live, then?'
'Because you are young and beautiful and rich enough to be very happy. Do you never look at your face in the mirror? The eyes of Baraka are like the pools of paradise, when the moon rose upon them the [{263}] first time, her waist is as slender as a young willow sapling that bends to the breath of a spring breeze, her mouth is a dark rose from Gulistán——'
But Baraka interrupted him with a faint smile.
'You speak emptiness,' she said quietly. 'What is the oath, that I may swear it? Shall I take Allah, and the Prophet, and the Angel Israfil to witness that I will keep my word? Shall I prick my hand and let the drops fall into your two hands that you may drink them? What shall I do and say? I am ready.'
'You must swear an oath that my fathers swore before there were Christians or Musulmans in the world, when the old gods were still great.'