"I have sworn an oath," Mahmud said, gloomily.
"But you have not sworn to slay instantly. You can keep them, at least, until you can take them before the Khalifa, and say to him:
"'Father, I have sworn to kill unbelievers, but these men have saved Fatma's life; and I pray you to absolve me from the oath, or order them to be taken from me, and then do you yourself pardon them and set them free for the service that they have rendered me.'
"If he refuses, if these men are killed, I also swear that, as my life is due to them, I myself will perish by my own hands, if they die for saving it!"
"It needs not that, Fatma. You think that I am ungrateful, that I do not feel that these men have acted nobly, thus to risk their lives to save a strange woman whose face they have never seen. It is my oath that lies heavily upon me. I have never been false to an oath."
"Nor need you be now," Fatma said earnestly. "You swore to slay any unbeliever that fell into your hands. This man has not fallen into your hands. I have a previous claim to him. He is under my protection. I cover him with my robe"--and she swept a portion of her garment round Gregory--"and as long as he is under it he is, according to tribal laws, safe even from the vengeance of my husband!
"As to the other, he is not an unbeliever. Your oath concerns him not. Him you can honour and reward, according to the value you place upon my life."
The Arab's face cleared.
"Truly you have discovered a way out of it, Fatma, at any rate for the present."
He turned to Gregory for the first time.