Looking round he had seen him struggling with the woman in the stream, and without hesitation had leapt overboard.
"I am sorry you came," Gregory said, "for it is only throwing away your life. It is of no use shouting, for they could not hear us in that din, and if they happened to catch sight of us would take us for two of the black boatmen. I Bee the stream is taking us nearer to the bank."
Zaki had taken hold of the woman while he was speaking, " We might swim a long way down, master, if we let go oi her."
" I won't do that, Zaki. I know now that I was a fool to jump overboard, but now that I have done so I will save her life. Besides, I could not swim very far even without her; I am feeling the weight of my boots and clothes. Will you swim with us till I can touch the ground, and then leave us? Strike right into the river again—I know that you are a good swimmer—and drop down the stream until you reach one of the islands, and then you can land and hail the gun-boats as they come down. Tell Captain Keppel why I jumped over."
" I am not going to leave you, master. No doubt the Dervishes will shoot me, but my life is of no consequence, and I shall be glad to die by the side of so good a master."
The woman, who had ceased to struggle when Gregory shook off her grasp, was now conscious, as, with one of them supporting her on each side, her head was above water.
" They will not kill you," she said; " you have saved me, and they will be grateful."
Gregory had no faith whatever in Dervish gratitude.
"Well, Zaki," he said, "if you will not leave us we will strike at once for the shore. The gun-boats are nearly half a mile away now. There is just a chance that we may not have been noticed by the Dervishes, and may be able to hide in the bushes till the gun-boats return. When they see me they will at once send a boat ashore under cover of their fire, and take us off."
"There is a good chance of that, master," Zaki said cheerfully, "and the Dervishes are busy up there fighting, and will not think much of a little boat."
Three or four minutes later they were in shallow water. As soon as they landed, Gregory threw himself down utterly exhausted, and the woman sank down beside him, but not before hastily rearranging her veil. In a couple of minutes Gregory roused himself.
" I can climb the bank now," he said, " and the sooner we are hidden among the bushes the better." But as he spoke he heard the sound of galloping horsemen, and almost immediately an Emir on a magnificent animal, followed by a dozen Dervishes, dashed up. "Mahmud!" the woman cried as she rose to her feet, "it is I, Fatma!"
Mahmud gave a cry of joy, and waved his hand to his followers, who had already pointed their rifles at Gregory.
" These have saved me, my lord," the woman went on. " They jumped from their boat and reached me just as I was sinking, and have borne me up. For my sake you must spare their lives."
Mahmud frowned. He dismounted and went up to his wife. "Have I not sworn, Fatma," he said, "that I would slay every unbeliever who falls into my hands? How, then, can I spare even one who has saved your life?"
" Others have been spared who have been of service, my lord," she said. "There are Greeks and Egyptians who work your guns, and they were spared because they were useful. There is Neufeld, who lives under the protection of the Khalifa. Surely these men have done far more to deserve not only life but honour at your hands. They risked their lives to save mine. What follower of the Prophet could do more? They could not have known who I was, a woman they saw drowning. Are there any among the bravest of the tribes who would have done the same?"
" 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. " Do you speak our tongue ?" he asked.
"Yes, Emir, as Avell 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 ?"