“But you have not been introduced to Clara: the naughty girl little thought that she was carrying on an amour with her own cousin.”
When Donna Celia called her down, I made no scruple of pressing the dear girl to my heart, and implanting a kiss upon her lips: with our eyes beaming with love and joy, we sat down upon the sofa, I in the centre, with a hand locked in the hand of each. “And now, my dear Pedro, I am anxious to hear the narrative of your life,” said Donna Celia: “that it has been honourable to yourself, I feel convinced.” Thanking her for her good opinion, which I hoped neither what had passed, or might in future occur, would be the means of removing, I commenced the history of my life in the following words...
“Commenced the history of your life?” interrupted the pacha. “Does the slave laugh at our beards? What then is all this you have been telling us?”
“The truth, your highness,” replied the Spaniard.
“What I am about to tell, is the history of my life, which I invented to deceive the old lady Donna Celia, and which is all false.”
“I understand, Mustapha, this kafir is a regular kessehgou (Eastern story-teller), he makes one story breed another; but it is late; see that he attends to-morrow afternoon, Bero! Go, infidel, the muezzin calls to prayers.”
The Spaniard quitted the sublime presence, and in obedience to the call of the muezzin, the pacha and Mustapha paid their customary evening devotions—to the bottle.