Before Ricardo went with his answer to his master, he consulted Mahmoud as to what it should be.  They agreed between them that it should be as discouraging as possible, and that he should advise the cadi to take the girl as soon as possible to Constantinople, and accomplish his wishes on the way by fair means or by force.  Moreover, that in order to prevent the unpleasant consequences that might ensue from supplanting the sultan, it would be well to purchase another slave, then pretend, or contrive on the voyage, that Leonisa should fall sick, and throw the newly-purchased Christian woman into the sea by night, with all possible secrecy, giving out that the person who had died was Leonisa, the sultan’s slave.  All this might be done in such a manner that the truth should never be known, and the cadi would remain blameless in the sultan’s eyes, and have the full enjoyment of his desires.  The wretched old cadi, who was so blinded by his passion that he would have listened to any absurdity they proposed, eagerly fell in with this scheme as one full of promise; and so indeed it was, but not as he imagined; for the intention of his two advisers was to make off with the boat, and pitch the old fool into the sea.

But a difficulty occurred to the cadi, one of the greatest in his eyes that could possibly be.  It occurred to him that his wife would not let him go to Constantinople without her; but presently he got over this obstacle by saying, that instead of buying a Christian woman to put to death in Leonisa’s name, he would make Halima serve his turn, for he longed with all his heart to be rid of her.  Mahmoud and Ricardo agreed to this expedient as readily as he proposed it, and this being finally settled, the cadi that same day imparted to his wife his design of setting out at once for Constantinople, to present the Christian captive to the Sultan, who, he expected would, in his munificence, make him grand cadi of Cairo or Constantinople.  Halima, with great alacrity, expressed her approval of his intention, believing that Mario would be left at home; but when the cadi told her that he would take both him and Mahmoud along with him, she changed her mind, and began to dissuade him from what she had before advised; and finally, she told him that unless she went with him she would not allow him to go at all.  The cadi had great satisfaction in complying with her desire, for he thought he would soon get rid of a burden that hung like a millstone round his neck.

All this while Hassan Pasha was indefatigable in pressing the cadi to give up the slave girl to him, in return for which he offered him mountains of gold, and had already made him a present of Ricardo, whose ransom he valued at two thousand crowns.  Moreover, to facilitate the transfer, he suggested to the cadi the same expedient which the latter had himself devised, namely, that when the Grand Turk sent for Leonisa he should pretend she was dead.  But all the pasha’s gifts, promises, and entreaties, had no other effect