"No."
"In one of their poems—the Bhagavad Gita, I think—it is described as having its roots above and its branches downward; thus drawing life from the sky and offering its fruit most conveniently, it is to me the symbol of a good and just king. It rose to my mind when thy kinsman—may Allah be thrice merciful to him!—passed me with his speech of forgiveness, and this gift "—he raised his hand, and looked at the ring on one of the fingers-"in place of which I was more deserving burial in the Bosphorus, as the black-browed Admiral said."
A frown dark as the Admiral's roughened his smooth brow.
"Why so?" she inquired.
"The tales I told were of a kind to be spared a Greek, even one who may not cover his instep with the embroidered buskin of an Emperor."
"Nay, Sheik, they did not ruffle him. On the tongue of a Turk, I admit, the traditions had been boastful, but you are not a Turk."
The remark might have been interrogative; wherefore with admirable address, he replied: "An Ottoman would see in me an Arab wholly unrelated to him, except as I am a Moslem. Let it pass, O Princess—he forgave me. The really great are always generous. When I took the ring, I thought, Now would the young Mahommed have so lightly pardoned the provocation?"
"Mahommed!" she said.
"Not the Prophet," he answered; "but the son of Amurath."
"Ah, you know him?"