“Gently, gently, friend Ricardo,” said Mahmoud; “I am afraid if you praise your mistress at that rate you will seem to be a heathen rather than a Christian.”

“Well, tell me then,” said Ricardo, “what you think of doing in our business.  Whilst you were conducting Leonisa to Halima, a Venetian renegade who was in the pasha’s tent, and who understands Turkish very well, explained to me all that had passed between them.  Above all things, then, we must try to find some means of preventing Leonisa’s being sent to the Grand Signor.”

“The first thing to be done is to have you transferred to my master,” said Mahmoud, “and then we will consider what next.”

The keeper of Hassan’s Christian slaves now came up and took Ricardo away with him.  The cadi returned to the city with Hassan, who in a few days made out the report on Ali’s administration, and gave it to him under seal that he might depart to Constantinople.  Ali went away at once, laying strict injunctions on the cadi to send the captive without delay to the sultan, along with such a letter as would be serviceable to himself.  The cadi promised all this with a treacherous heart, for it was inflamed for the fair Christian.  Ali went away full of false hopes, leaving Hassan equally deluded by them.  Mahmoud contrived that Ricardo should pass into the possession of his master; but day after day stole on, and Ricardo was so racked with longing to see Leonisa, that he could have no rest.  He changed his name to Mario, that his own might not reach her ears before he saw her, which, indeed, was a very difficult thing, because the Moors are exceedingly jealous, and conceal the faces of their women from the eyes of all men; it is true they are not so scrupulous with regard to Christian slaves, perhaps, because being slaves they do not regard them as men.

Now it chanced that one day the lady Halima saw her slave Mario, and gazed so much upon him that his image regained printed on her heart.  Not very well satisfied with the languid embraces of her old husband, she readily gave admission to a reprehensible desire, and as readily communicated it to Leonisa, whom she liked much for her agreeable temper, and treated with great respect as a slave of the Grand Signor.  She told her how the cadi had brought home a Christian captive of such graceful manners and appearance, that she had never set eyes on a more engaging man in all her life; she understood that he was a chilidi (that is, a gentleman) of the same country as her renegade Mahmoud, and she knew not how to make known to him her inclination, so that the Christian might not despise her for her voluntary declaration.  Leonisa asked what was the captive’s name, and being told that it was Mario, she replied, “If he was a gentleman, and of the place they say, I should know him; but there is no one of that name in Trapani.  But let me see him, and speak with him, lady, and I will tell you who he is, and what may be expected of him.”