"Take them, Lenore, daughter," said the happy father, fondly, and the fair taper fingers of the maiden clasped the luminous treasure.
The duenna's eyes were fixed upon her.
How beautiful she grew with pleasure. Her dark eyes soft as a gazelles, were radiant with light, her red lips parted with smiles, and the Moorish pearls adding a new luster to her purple hair.
"Can she be the third?" thought the duenna, and in a voice husky with emotion she gasped: "Don Carlos, those pearls! How came you by them? What hand has touched them?"
"Tell us all, dear papa," said Lenore, not noticing the duenna's agitation, in her own delight.
"In all Spain," said the father, "I could not find the pearls, but I heard of them from an old Moor.
"He said they were lost near the shore of a distant island, and he promised to procure them for me for a large reward, which I agreed to give him; so we sailed for the island, but I became so ill at sea that when we arrived I was confined to my bed.
"At length the old Moor brought me this beautiful casket, and pressing the spring I saw the pearls, radiant with all their snowy whiteness, but I was so ill I did not take them out, and when I handed them back to the old Moor to place in my cabinet, the pearls fell out into his hands, and flooded the whole room with light. Great Allah! exclaimed the old man, in terror, and, as he replaced them and closed the casket, he fell down and expired instantly.
"The physician said he died of heart disease. I grew much worse, and fearing I should die, confided the pearls to the care of our friend, who brought them to you, and soon after I fell into a swoon so like death that all thought me dead, and the ship sailed without me.