“Well, art thou satisfied? Thou shouldst be, for thou hast seen her. Are your women of Europe so to be disdained, that you must come among us to carry off ours? Until now you have coveted our horses only. How didst thou find means to correspond with her? Who was thy guide? How did she first see thee?”
Like a tiger, which with eye and ear watches for the least cry, the least motion of the prey it is about to seize, Djezzar watched for a word of avowal—a denunciatory sign on the part of him whom he interrogated. He obtained none from him, but he felt the knees of Baïla tremble.
“Christian,” he resumed, “I repeat to thee, be sincere. Tell me what hope thou hast conceived; tell me who introduced thee into this place; name thy accomplice, and whatever may be thy fault I will place in the other scale thy youth and thy consular title, although thy presence in the midst of my harem at night gives me a right to forget it. But I will consider what thou hast already endured, and, like Allah, I will be merciful. Speak; I listen.”
He inhaled again the odorous smoke of his pipe, and appeared to await a reply; but the captive remained silent and motionless.
“Speak, Christian, speak! There is yet time. At this price alone canst thou purchase thy life—by abjuring thy idolatry, of course.”
At this last sentence the young man raised his head—a noble blush mounted to his face.
“To denounce and apostatize,” said he; “is such thy clemency, pacha? Have thy executioners forgotten to tell thee who I am? Art thou, who hast thyself honored me with the title of Christian, ignorant of the duties which this title enjoins? Dost thou think that the disciples of Christ care so much for this mortal life, as to plunge their souls twice into ineffaceable pollution?” and his eye sparkled, and his whole countenance assumed an expression of sublime beauty.
“It is said,” said Djezzar, forming, from his apparent imperturbability, a fine contrast with the exaltation of the young Frank. “Thou wishest to die, and thou shalt die. But dost thou know for what an end I reserve thee?”
“Be it what it may, I am ready,” replied the captive.
“Then thou regrettest nothing of this mortal life?” and the pacha followed his look attentively, which he thought he would fix on Baïla.