While they spoke thus, tears, strangers to the eyes of men, streamed down their cheeks, and sighs but choked their utterance. So touching was their grief, that those who shared their fate were yet as much affected by the sight as with their own misfortune. Not so the wretches who formed the crew of the Tunisian corsair. Perceiving that Mendoza was the last to quit the Algerine vessel, they tore him without ceremony from the arms of the Toledan; and, as they dragged him away, added blows to insult. "Adieu, dear friend," he cried: "adieu for ever! Donna Theodora is yet unavenged! and, parted from you, the miseries that these wretches prepare will be the least that slavery can bring to me."
Don Juan was unable to reply to the exclamations of his friend; the treatment that he saw him endure filled his breast with a horror which deprived him of speech. And so, Signor Don Cleophas, as the course of my narrative requires that we should follow the Toledan, we will leave Don Fabricio, in solemn silence, to be conducted on board of the Tunisian pirate.
The Algerine returned toward his port, where, having arrived, he conducted his slaves to the house of the superintending basha, and thence to the public market. An officer of the Dey, Mezzomorto, purchased Don Juan for his master; and the new slave was at once employed as an assistant in the gardens of the harem. This occupation, although laborious for a gentleman, was however, the less disagreeable to Don Juan, on account of the solitude to which it left him; for, situated as he was, it was a pleasure to have at least the liberty of indulging his own melancholy thoughts. Incessantly occupied with his misfortunes, his mind, far from endeavouring to lighten them with hope, seemed to delight in dwelling on the past, and to inspire his bosom with gloomiest presages for the future.
One day he was occupied with his work, murmuring the while one of his now usual songs of sorrow, when the Dey, who was walking in the garden, came upon him without being perceived, and stopped to listen. Pleased with his voice, and moved by curiosity, he approached the captive and asked his name. The Toledan replied, that he was called Alvaro; for, following the usual custom with slaves, of concealing their station, he thought fit to change his name, and, as the outrage upon Donna Theodora was ever uppermost in his thoughts, the name of the detested Alvaro had come soonest to his lips when suddenly asked his own. Mezzomorto, who spoke the Spanish language tolerably well, then questioned him as to the customs of Spain, and particularly as to the conduct observed by those of its cavaliers who would render themselves agreeable to their ladies;—to all of which Don Juan replied in such a manner as to greatly please the Dey.
"Alvaro," said he to him at last, "you appear to be intelligent; and I judge you to have been a man of rank in your own country: but, however that may be, you are fortunate enough to please me, and I will honour you with my confidence." At these words, Don Juan prostrated himself before the Dey, and with well-affected humility, kissed the hem of his master's robe, and after touching with it his eyes and forehead, arose, and stood before him in silence.
"To begin by giving you proof of my regard," resumed the Dey, "you know, that in my seraglio, I have some of the fairest women which Europe can offer for my pleasures. Among these, however, there is one whose beauty is beyond compare; nor do I believe that the Grand Signor himself possesses so exquisite a creature, although for him the winds of heaven daily waft ships with their lovely burden from all quarters of the globe. In her visage the dazzling sun seems reflected, and her form is graceful as the rose's stem which grows in the gardens of Eram. My soul is enchanted with her perfections.
