Again the wives, the unloved ones, advanced towards him, bearing water and food; and again the Arab stepped forward to intercept them. The two women persisted in their design, and, while opposing the efforts of the Arab to turn them back, they called on the two youths, the relatives of the black sheik, as also on Fatima, to assist them. Of the three persons thus appealed to, only Golah's son obeyed their summons; but his attempt to aid the women was immediately frustrated by the Arab, who claimed him as a slave, and who now commanded him to stand aside. His command having no effect, the Arab proceeded to use force. At the risk of his life the youth resisted. He dared to use violence against a master, a crime that on the desert demands the punishment of death. Aroused from his painful reverie by the commotion going on around him, Golah, seeing the folly of the act, shouted to his son to be calm, and yield obedience; but the youth, not heeding the command of his father, continued his resistance. He was just on the point of being cut down, when the Krooman ran forward, and pronouncing in Arabic two words signifying "father and son", saved the youth's life. The Arab robber had sufficient respect for the relationship to stay his hand from committing murder; but to prevent any further trouble with the young fellow, he was seized by several others, fast bound, and flung to the ground by the side of his father. The two women, still persisting in their design to relieve the wants of their unfortunate husband, were then knocked down, kicked, beaten, and finally dragged inside the tents. This scene was witnessed by Fatima; who, instead of showing sympathy, appeared highly amused by it, so much so as even to give way to laughter. Her unnatural behaviour once more roused the indignation of her husband. The wrong of being robbed, the humiliation of being bound, the knowledge that he himself, along with his children, would be sold into slavery, the torture of hunger and thirst, were sources of misery no longer heeded by him; all were forgotten in the contemplation of a far greater anguish. Fatima, the favourite, the woman to whom his word should have been law, the woman who had always pretended to think him something more than mortal, now not only shunning but despising him in the midst of his misfortunes. This knowledge did more towards subduing the giant than all his other sufferings combined. "Old Golah looks very down in the mouth," remarked Terence to his companions. "If it was not for the beating he gave me yesterday, I could almost pity him. I made an oath, at the time he was thwacking me with the ramrod, that if my hands were ever again at liberty, I'd see if it was possible to kill him; but now that they are free, and his are bound, I've not the heart to touch him, bad as he is."