I am the little loved of Cornello, the truly wept of Ricardo, whom various chances have brought to the miserable state in which I now am; but through all my perils, by the favour of Heaven, I have preserved my honour unsullied, and that consoles me in my misery.  I know not at this moment where I am, nor who is my master, nor what my adverse fates have determined is to become of me.  I entreat you, therefore, senor, by the Christian blood that flows in your veins, that you will advise me in my difficulties; for though they have already taught me something by experience, yet they are so great and never-ending, that I know not what to do.”

Mahmoud assured her he would do what he could to help her to the best of his understanding and his power.  He acquainted her with the nature of the dispute there had been between the pashas concerning her, and how she was now in the keeping of his master the cadi, who was to send her to Constantinople to the Grand Turk Selim; but that he trusted that the true God, in whom he, though a bad Christian, believed, would dispose of her otherwise.  He advised her to conciliate Halima, the wife of his master the cadi, with whom she was to remain until she was sent to Constantinople, and of whose character he gave her some details.  Having given her this and other useful counsel, he arrived at the cadi’s house, and delivered her over to Halima along with his master’s message.

The Moorish woman received her well, seeing her so beautiful and so handsomely dressed, and Mahmoud returned to the tents, where he recounted to Ricardo, point by point, all that had passed between himself and Leonisa; and the tears came into his eyes when he spoke of the feeling displayed by Leonisa, when he told her that Ricardo was dead.  He stated how he had invented the story of Cornelio’s captivity, in order to see what impression it made on her; and in what disparaging terms he had spoken of him.  All this was balm to Ricardo’s afflicted heart.

“I remember, friend Mahmoud,” he said, “an anecdote related to me by my father; you know how ingenious he was, and you have heard how highly he was honoured by the emperor, Charles V., whom he always served in honourable posts in peace and war.  He told me that when the emperor was besieging Tunis, a Moorish woman was brought to him one day in his tent, as a marvel of beauty, and that some rays of the sun, entering the tent, fell upon her hair, which vied with them in its golden lustre; a rare thing among the Moorish women, whoso hair is almost universally black.  Among many other Spanish gentlemen present on that occasion, there were two of distinguished talent as poets, the one an Andalusian, the other a Catalan.  Struck with admiration at the sight before him, the Andalusian began to extemporise some verses, but stopped short in the middle of the last line, unable to finish them for want of a rhyme; whereupon the Catalan, who saw his embarrassment, caught the line as it were out of his mouth, finished it, continued the thought, and completed the poem.  This incident came into my mind when I saw the exquisitely beautiful Leonisa enter the pasha’s tent obscuring not only the rays of the sun, but the whole firmament with all its stars.”