"Pshaw! we will talk in the Southern dialect," said Chon; and it was thanks to this precaution that the two
communed to the puzzlement of the youth on the rest of the journey.
But he had the consolation of thinking that he had comforted a viscount who stood in the king's favor. If Andrea only saw him now! He did not think of Nicole.
"Hello!" broke off the viscount, as he looked behind out of the window. "Here comes that Arab with the strange woman on its back. I would give a thousand pistoles for that steed, and a fortune for the beauty."
The black-eyed woman wrapped in a white cloak, with her brow shaded by a broad-brimmed felt hat with long feathers, flew by like an arrow along the roadside, crying:
"Avanti, Djerid!"
"She says 'Forward!' in Italian," said the viscount. "Oh, the lovely creature. If I were not in such pain, I would jump out and after her."
"You could not catch her, on that horse. It is the magician, and she is his wife."
"Magician?" questioned the Dubarrys together.
"Yes, Baron Joseph Balsamo."