Lucilio handed him the paper, which seemed to the marquis an undecipherable scrawl.
"This," said the mute with his pencil, "is a translation in Arabic of the noble words you just said. See if the child knows how to read, and if he understands that language."
Mario glanced at the paper which was handed him, ran to the Moor and read it to her; she listened with great emotion, kissed the paper and fell on her knees at the marquis's feet.
Then she turned to Giovellino and said to him in Arabic:
"Man of courage and virtue, say to this good man what I am going to say to you. I did not wish you to speak my language before the Spaniard. I was not willing that the child should say a word before him. The Spaniard hates us, and, wherever he meets us, he does us harm. But the child is a Christian, he is not a slave. You can see on my brow the brand of the Inquisition; it is still there, although I was very small when they branded me."
As she spoke, she untied the kerchief of multicolored sackcloth which confined her long black hair, and pointed to her forehead on which there was no sign of the red-hot iron. But she rubbed it with her hand, and the ghastly rebus stood out in white on the red skin.
"But look at this youthful brow," she said, lifting Mario's abundant, silky locks. "If it had been branded like mine, it would not be possible to mistake the mark. This brow was baptized by a priest of your religion; the child has been reared in the faith and the language of his fathers."
While the Moor was speaking, Lucilio had written a translation of her words, and the marquis read as he wrote.
"Ask her for her story," he said to the mute; "make her understand that we are interested in her misfortunes and that we will take her under our protection."
It was not necessary for Lucilio to write Bois-Doré's interruptions. Mario, who spoke Arabic as readily as French and Catalan, translated it to his adoptive mother with remarkable fidelity.