"Upon this, Xaral, maddened with rage at beholding his enemy escape him, after having with impunity dishonoured his house, turned all his fury against the unfortunate Hippolita, and plunged his sword into her heart. After which his two relatives returned to their homes, extremely mortified at the bad success of their plot, and with no other consolation than their wounds. There we will leave them," continued Asmodeus. "When we have passed in review the other captives, I will finish the history of this one. I will relate to you how, after justice, or rather the law, had possessed itself of his effects on account of this mournful event, the pirates seized his person, with about as good reason, when he happened to be making a voyage."
"While you were telling me this story of love and pride," said Don Cleophas, "I observed a young man whose countenance bespeaks such sorrow at his heart, that I wonder I did not interrupt you to inquire its cause." "You will lose nothing by your discretion," replied the Demon; "I can tell you now all you desire to know. The captive whose dejection attracted your notice, is a youth of family from Valladolid. Two years was he in slavery, but with a patron who possessed a very pretty wife. The lady looked with favour on the slave, and the slave, as in duty bound, repaid the lady's favours with interest. The patron, becoming suspicious as to the nature of his slave's labours, hastened to sell the Christian to the brothers of the Redemption, lest he should be irreligiously employed in the propagation of Mahometanism. The tender Castilian, ever since, has done nothing but weep for the loss of his patroness; liberty itself cannot console him."
"An old man of good appearance attracts my attention there," said Leandro Perez; "who, and what, is he?" The Devil replied: "He is a barber, of Guipuscoa, who is about to return to Biscay after a captivity of forty years. When he fell into the hands of a corsair, in going from Valencia to the island of Sardinia, he had a wife, two sons, and a daughter. Of all these, one son alone remains; and he, more lucky than his father, has been to Peru, whence he has safely returned with immense wealth to his native province, in which he has recently purchased two handsome estates." "What pleasure!" exclaimed the Student, "what delight awaits this happy son, to behold again his long-lost parent, and to be enabled to render his declining years peaceful and agreeable!"
"You," replied the Cripple, "speak like a child whom tenderness and duty prompt; the son of the Biscayan barber is of a sterner mould: the unlooked-for coming of his sire to him will bring more grief than joy. Instead of welcoming him to his mansion at Guipuscoa, and sparing nothing to mark the bliss he feels at pressing him once more to his bosom, he will probably be filial enough to make him steward of one of his estates.
"Behind this captive, whose good looks you admire so much, is another as like an old baboon as are two drops of water to each other: he is a little Aragonese physician. He has not been a fortnight in Algiers; for as soon as the Turks knew what was his profession, they resolved, rather than suffer him to remain among them, to place him without ransom in the hands of the fathers of Mercy, who would certainly never have purchased him, and who bring him back with compunction to Spain.
"You who feel so sensibly the woes of others, ah! how would you grieve for that other slave, he who wears upon his head that little cap of brown cloth, did you but know the ills he has endured during twelve years, in the house of an English renegade, his patron." "And who is this unhappy captive?" asked Zambullo. "He is a cordelier of Navarre," replied the Demon. "I must own, however, that for myself, I rejoice that he has suffered so severely; since, by his eternal preaching, he has prevented more than a hundred Christian slaves from adopting the turban."
"Well! to imitate your frankness," replied Don Cleophas, "I must say that I am really afflicted to think that this good father should have been so long at the mercy of the barbarian." "As to that," replied Asmodeus, "you are as unwise to regret it, as I to rejoice. The good monk has turned his dozen years' captivity to so good account, that he will find his advantage in having passed that time in suffering instead of in his cell, where he would have striven with temptations that he would not at all times have vanquished."
"The first captive after the monks," said Leandro Perez, "has a most complacent air for a man who returns from slavery: he excites my curiosity to know his history." "You anticipate me," replied the Cripple; "I was just about to tell you all about him. You see in him, a citizen of Salamanca, an unfortunate father, a mortal rendered insensible to misfortune by the weight of those he has experienced. I am tempted to relate to you the painful details of his life, and to leave the rest of the captives to their fates; besides, there is scarcely another whose adventures are worth the trouble of telling."
The Student, who began to tire of this sombre procession, stated that he asked for nothing better; whereupon, the Devil began the history contained in the following chapter.
